[jameal]

There's always the risk of losing that passion when you do something for money. It's an old cliche. It's especially difficult in an organization with all the red tape and other constraints.

In my experience, you have to have a hobby outside of coding. Whether it's wood working or something else. Now, take that hobby and combine it somehow with coding. If it's music, make your own synth. Make your own tools to learn music theory. If it's exercise, make your own workout tracking app. You might even just build tools to empower your own dev workflows. Maybe it's a bookmarklet or user script to taylor your favorite websites to your liking.

Don't do too much planning or thinking ahead, just let yourself get into a creative flow state. Flow state is key! And it sounds like that's what you're missing in your day job.

I wrote about this idea on my blog if you want to read about my experience. I combined my love of hiking with coding and discovered a newfound enthusiasm that I hadn't experienced in a long time: https://jameals.com/essays/build-for-fulfillment