One part of me agrees. The other part says: But if I wouldn't have fallen in love with what I was doing to begin with, I would never have reached the point of ability that I did reach.
Maybe the only solution to this is to take a break, then try to learn to open your heart again and risk being disappointed once more. Maybe this time, you will be able to recognize it before it's "too late". I don't know.
I think you're conflating skill and ability with impact and expectations.
Early on in your life, your expectations could have been to gain tremendous skill and grow your abilities. You probably didn't care that much if your work went into the trash because in the process, you learned some extremely important and valuable skills. That journey itself made it all worth it and met your expectations.
Over time, as you become more skillful and able, your expectations could change to seeing your work having real impact on the world instead.
This is perhaps, to you, now there's marginal return on being even more skillful and able. You ask "what's the end goal and did I reach it?"
> risk being disappointed once more. Maybe this time, you will be able to recognize it before it's "too late". I don't know
I mentioned in my own comment, the root cause of burnout - be it coding or otherwise, is when expectations don't match reality.
If you're a developer, your impact and outcome is beholden to management, so even through you might not realize it, part of your jobsearch now has to focus on ensuring you detect great management - and you make it a part of your interview to locate them.
The real solution to not being burned out: work with a team that actually knows what they are doing and have strong fundamentals.