Not sure I can offer advice, just an anecdotal observation from a fellow hacker. I used to care _a lot_ about work which netted me several startups CTO gigs, since people want caring people working as their leads, generally.

But at some point I was thrown into a situation where I lost a 10 year old relationship, and had to rebuild my life from scratch, and realized that for me, caring for my work environment was mostly because I had a stable and nice environment at home, and needed to take on challenges and risks somewhere, so naturally the workplace provided such an outlet.

Once I was “alone” I suddenly could take much more risks and excitement from my personal life, so work became not that important - got a sailing license, a motorbike license, traveled the world, started latin dances, stuff like that - things that I always wanted to do, but dismissed as “too risky to even attempt”.

I guess I will always have a “risk appetite” where I express it though is up to me. So far I like where my life is going :)