You can't base an emotional decision on rational arguments. If you're going to be rational about it, you're never going to leave your golden handcuffs.
Unlike you, I love coding. I've learned Erlang, Lisp, Dylan in my spare time just because I really enjoy programming. I try to learn a new language every 6 months. But it wasn't always like that.
A few years ago I was a senior network engineer at a leading networking equipment vendor, made more money than all of my close friends together and had no pointy-haired boss. But, like you, I was bored most of the time. I didn't particularly hate my job, I just knew that I wanted to get excited about something. So I quit to work on a startup with friends.
I didn't start coding right away. Despite having majored in CS, I couldn't write a line of code to save my life. Hell, I couldn't even write HTML. Besides, I hated programming at the time. But I wanted to be part of the creation process, so I needed to learn the tools. I learned HTML, then CSS, Wordpress, Ruby, Python. Somewhere between HTML and Python, I realized that I actually enjoyed coding; it grew on me.
Fast forward 5 years, I still don't make half of what I used to make as a network engineer. But I'm way happier.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't be afraid of exploring. You don't have to be 100% certain of what your passion is in order to take the plunge and a startup is a great place to explore, since you get to wear so many hats.
any tips for someone struggling with trying to learn Python? Im struggling motivation wise, dont have much direction. I hear its good to learn through a project or something you want to build, but I dont know enough about the language to really have a good idea of a project or goal I can aspire to
One of the best decisions I made (programming-wise) was to find a local Dojo. Really, just look for a Python user or interest group. You'll get lots of ideas and a motivation injection every week.
Also, you should start a project that's slightly above your current level. Anything will do, even if it's a clone of something that already exists. It doesn't matter if you're building it by googling and copy & pasting everything. At your level, what matters it to actually ship something.
Finally, read other people's code. Github is your friend; find an interesting library, go back to the very first commit and start reading the code base as it used to be. If you find a function/routine that you don't understand, just type it line-by-line in your repl (bpython or ipython in this case) and inspect the outcome of variables/function calls (use python docs/stackoverflow as reference). You don't need to read an entire library, it could be just a small piece of functionality. You'll grow by leaps and bounds just by doing this.
Good luck and if you need any help, shoot me an email, I'd be glad to help.
Unlike you, I love coding. I've learned Erlang, Lisp, Dylan in my spare time just because I really enjoy programming. I try to learn a new language every 6 months. But it wasn't always like that.
A few years ago I was a senior network engineer at a leading networking equipment vendor, made more money than all of my close friends together and had no pointy-haired boss. But, like you, I was bored most of the time. I didn't particularly hate my job, I just knew that I wanted to get excited about something. So I quit to work on a startup with friends.
I didn't start coding right away. Despite having majored in CS, I couldn't write a line of code to save my life. Hell, I couldn't even write HTML. Besides, I hated programming at the time. But I wanted to be part of the creation process, so I needed to learn the tools. I learned HTML, then CSS, Wordpress, Ruby, Python. Somewhere between HTML and Python, I realized that I actually enjoyed coding; it grew on me.
Fast forward 5 years, I still don't make half of what I used to make as a network engineer. But I'm way happier.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't be afraid of exploring. You don't have to be 100% certain of what your passion is in order to take the plunge and a startup is a great place to explore, since you get to wear so many hats.
BTW, it's not too late; I was 27 when I quit.