IMO, my passion stems from helping others. Romanticizing it, it’s literally part of the first sentence in the Agile Manifesto:

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.

So with that, my passion is finding ways to help:

• At university where I’d try to help by forming study groups and going over material or debug sessions for larger projects.

• At work asking my lead/manager/seniors what pain points they’re facing and trying to figure out a way to fix/own that issue.

• Spending time to check in with other engineers on my team and asking them how they’re doing.

• Volunteering as a mentor for various Employee Resource Groups (or whatever your company might call them).

Maybe some of this is mental gymnastics for my brain, but by having more personal time with others it helps me feel like I’m actually driving an impact. Programming is a means to an end for me. The “drive” that stems from wanting to help has been far more powerful than any sort of “puzzle” that is some programming/architecture work.

This could also be my many years as part of the Scouting program and “helping other people at all times” …

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IDK if that was what you were wanting to hear, but it might give you a slightly different perspective. Regardless if this was helpful, best of luck.

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Edit:

If you really push me to give you a book of sorts …

https://quii.gitbook.io/learn-go-with-tests/

You don’t have to fully drink the Test Driven Development koolaid in your day to day life … but working through this book, it gives you an appreciation for how following good Design Patterns can make testing oh so much easier.

Plus, IMO, good code is easy to test. Easy to test code is less risky. Less risky code helps me not get called a 2am with a prod incident. Getting 8 hours a sleep is something I value very highly.