Thanks for sharing your introspection, really helped me think through my similar, but different situation. I released my first book last year, and the hurdle I had was hesitation due to lack of faith that I could be anything close to successful (A decent number of sales and do a bit a speaking about it). When I was younger I had so much faith in pursuing things that mattered to me, and when these pursuits turned out to be so difficult and painful, I lost the motivation. So when I had a compelling desire to write this book (about going straight --> trans), I had some emotional hurdles to overcome about whether the effort was worth it. (I knew I could do it).

Your great point about how the biggest workforce change from COVID is that people realized more clearly that they NEED to have meaning outside work to define them, made me realize what got me over that hurdle. I felt no meaning in the Tech Work I was doing - I used to love it because I believed I could take part in great things (while also earning a living). But due to it being full of usual group of corporate and startup bad characters and challenges, I had become a demotivated sloth who loved just going out, having fun, and perform. I NEEDED to write this book. I had something to say, and I wanted to believe work that I was doing had meaning. This motivated me to work on this with gusto and excitement - because I believed in it AND wanted / needed to do it. That made my Tech job SO much easier, and I could easily define success as making the sludge at work around us more bearable for the people that I manage and I'm involved with (i.e. keeping things on the high road and reigning people in who strayed to the Dark Side). I.e. I no longer needed to have my work have any big meaning other than that. And we can all relate to that kind of meaning at some level. I'm leaving my passions up to my performing and book writing...and a musical I'm producing in NYC about my book.