I like most people am tired, just plain old tired of the pandemic. There seems to be no end in sight to the pandemic or to the political blame game. However, I won’t go into politics in this post. This post is about change and changing directions.

This year I turned 50 years old and started to think more and more about what’s next for me in terms of work and personally. Personally, I am close to being an empty-nester. My kids should be finishing college within the year. I have been spending my extra time since they graduated high school working on side gigs and other projects. My intent was to travel more but then COVID-19 happened and put the kibosh on that plan. As an alternative, I have been spending a lot of time working out on my own and working on the aesthetics of my yard and home.

From a work perspective, I like my day job and my side gigs but I have been working in IT for almost 30 years. While you would think that every day is full of excitement and challenges you would be wrong. While there are lots of developments in the technology space in corporate America, you spend more time in meetings than writing code or trying new things. I have reached a good place in my career I am not ladder-climbing anymore or seeking to go into a management position. What do I want? I want to reclaim the joy of creating software without all of the baggage of meetings, redesigns, and changes in direction.

The big question is how do I do that? How do I fit in reclaiming the joy of development while keeping my full-time job? After working all week I do not feel like sitting down and thinking to be creative I just want to veg out and watch asinine things on TV or social media. This will be the struggle I have been dealing with. Does anyone feel the same?