There is no shame in having your work - even software development - be a means to an end.
You are well within reason to work to survive, tuck a little away, and use the rest (of both time and money) to explore unrelated interests and passions. I really enjoy gardening.
The cross-pollination of interests, passions and professional experience may well lead to a fun and interesting project where your $DAY_JOB skills come into their own in a way you’d not expect.
There’s something to be said for having a “local.” Lots has been written about having a “third-place,” though I can’t remember who coined the phrase.
There’s a bar and grill near where I live, I pop in frequently and almost always see someone I know. There’s a coffee shop next door that is about the same.
Something about a handshake, a hug, a “How was your day,” etc. goes quite a long way. That’s especially true for one living alone, as I do.
This article is brimming with nostalgia for me. I vividly remember sitting at a workbench my father had fashioned from an old door, recreating circuits from Mini-Notebooks.
Same. I have a stack of these somewhere at home. Grew up getting them at RadioShack, sometimes stopping to ask the salesperson questions about BASIC coding and they’d start jotting notes down.
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