[asdfman123]

There is middle ground though. I love to code and am doing this job for that reason, but there’s a lot of other things I want to do while I’m alive, too.

When I’m done coding all day I want to do other things like exercise, climb mountains, learn instruments, etc. My motivation to do other things isn’t due to a lack of curiosity, but curiosity channeled into other activities.

[imdsm]

And that's understandable. What John was saying and many of us here echo is that, for us, we'd like to want do the other things, but programming (outside of the commercial grind) is sweeter than all those things. To be consumed by (personal) work, working late into the night only to wake up and continue, uninterrupted and enjoying the bliss of focus, well, it can't be beaten. There's nothing like it.

> Programming is beginning again to be to the exclusion of all else in my life. (The table saw sits slowly rusting. The bike hangs on the wall in the garage.)

This in particular hits home. Programming, to the exclusion of all else in life.

> What am I trying to say? I have a programming addiction? (Maybe.)

There are times that I feel pulled in every direction by life, family, work, being alive, and it keeps me from this software ambrosia, even though I know that spending my life in front of a CRT/LCD/TFT/whatever they are these days is in a way wasted. I've spent 23 years doing it and I'm 33 now, and it feels like life has flown by in the glow of a terminal prompt.

[JeremyNT]

That's interesting to me. Personally, I feel like you can apply the same mindset to a lot of other activities, which makes them satisfying in the same "way" that programming is.

Putting things in neat little boxes, solving little puzzles... it's kind of hard to describe, but at least personally there are other things that give me the same sense of satisfaction.

[etherealG]

I would suggest reading a book called Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. It might help to align your feelings of addiction with your feelings of “spread” :)

Engineering is a wonderful tool but also a form of art. It’s ok to indulge your passion with some balance to the rest of life without calling it addiction.

[intended]

I used to love code in school. Never ended up coding for work: Went from finance to analysis, biz dev and management. Work was work.

The happiest I’ve been is in the past few months, in a new role. There are several reasons, but one of them is definitely that i have ann excuse to get back to code.

I find myself waking up early, and having work to finish, on a Saturday - that I enjoy. It’s feeding my ability to work on other personal projects, that make me happier and I learn new things.

> To be consumed by (personal) work, working late into the night only to wake up and continue, uninterrupted and enjoying the bliss of focus, well, it can't be beaten.