| You are 32ish. That’s still very young in the grand scheme of things and plenty of time to turn things around. Went through this myself, and did a complete 180 at the ripe age of 41, so you are way ahead than me. Introspection can only work so much. “Extro”spection can be twice as effective. You can only know so much internally. You mention not having love for the “art”. What do you have love for? Or what pulls you towards it, even if only slightly? Have you explored that or given it enough time to turn into something? Looking for inherent meaning in work can be a mirage. You have to “create” that meaning for whatever you are doing. I have written about my own experience that might be useful. Some questions to ask about your current goals and career:
https://www.leadingsapiens.com/questions-midlife-career-chan...
https://www.leadingsapiens.com/ask-before-setting-goals/ David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea is a must read. I elaborated on one of his concepts here:
https://www.leadingsapiens.com/the-set-of-our-sail-in-work-a... Mid career can be especially dangerous if we are not alert. Captured some of the dynamics here:
https://www.leadingsapiens.com/mid-career-mistakes/ Frameworks were essential for me to think through the big change. I collected all of them here:
https://www.leadingsapiens.com/essential-career-change-frame... |
You also helped me realize that part of all this mess is that I HAVE been feeling old. Well, maybe not old... older. I feel like I got hyper-focused on being a programmer (and I feel I never explicitly committed to it, just sort of went along with it) and now I just realized it's been 16 years.