Ask HN: Lost my appetite for software development, any recommendations?
I think this is possibly partially burnout, it could also be part of &quot;growing up&quot;, or perhaps you shifted priorities. I used to work 50-60 or even 80 hours a week, people praised me that I would respond within minutes on a Sunday evening - and I would be proud of it, too.<p>But that was 10 years ago. Now I don&#x27;t have work email on my phone, I work freelance, so I get to decide on what I want to do next; and work in general just doesn&#x27;t take up that high a priority anymore (being a freelance contractor has helped me develop this trait of &quot;I&#x27;m here to do work for your company, and you pay me&quot;).<p>I enjoy working on side projects and learning new stuff, and one side project I started 8 years ago is still profitable to this day, but I wouldn&#x27;t have started it anymore today, the motivation and naivite just don&#x27;t exist anymore, plus since I have a family to support, it would be too risky to start that big of a side project.<p>Maybe it&#x27;s time to just take a step back and assess what your long term goals are and in general what you want to achieve in life.<p>And it also reminded me of this:
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;kids.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;kids.html</a><p>&quot;I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to see that sentence written down. I squirm to avoid it. But if there weren&#x27;t something real there, why would I squirm? The fact is, once you have kids, you&#x27;re probably going to care more about them than you do about yourself. And attention is a zero-sum game. Only one idea at a time can be the top idea in your mind. Once you have kids, it will often be your kids, and that means it will less often be some project you&#x27;re working on.&quot;