[dominotw]

> To throw it away because you're not "creatively expressing yourself" would be foolish.

These golden shackles chained me to my faang job for a over a decade. Now I look back and my youth is gone. I have less energy , less creative drive, less inclination to shift my brain into a different groove to spin on. Makes me sick when i think about the fact that i gave my youth away to a corporation. I was just a 'young blood' willing to bang out code on demand.

I look back my past decade and I have no idea what I was doing. Its all just a blur.

[paulryanrogers]

Yet at the end you have the gold, so to speak. At smaller creative places you may end up feeling fulfilled and entirely unable to support yourself or family financially. It's not binary either. There is a spectrum.

I spent years on creative pursuits at college in gaming, got no money for it, then took a corp job. Ultimately I regret pouring out so much creative energy, especially since it was modding based on IP I didn't own. Anyway, my creative pursuits today are so modest and routine it would make the younger me scoff. And yet now I'm satisfied with a corporate job and hobbies like home improvement and occasional game playing and podcast recording.