I started programming on Zilog z80 when I was 11 years old, at school in NZ. I'm now 55, and I've been a programmer for all that time. I've worked as contractor, consultant, tech and architecture lead, people manager, independent limited company in the UK, published author. I started a charity. There's more, but you get the idea, I've seen many sides of this programming malarkey.

Like you, at times, I reached a plateau of motivation, and more than once I questioned the meaning of the job I was doing, unsatisfied and listless.

I think if you are at all introspective, reflective, that it's inevitable you go through patches like this.

You've now got plenty of advice from many with experience, I won't add to that pile. Instead, just briefly, a word on my current situation and outlook.

Working for someone else is only rarely going to be broadly fulfilling. Working for yourself can be worse.

So I developed my hobby interests, most involving programming, because I still love it. I still get excited exploring possible solutions to hard problems. It's fulfilling in a way that working for megaCorp can never be. It's the difference between straining to meet a work deadline and straining to win a game. Similar, but different.

In other words, contentment, for me, comes from within.