Yeah, I did this and you might not really like the answer.<p>First, understand that you're probably getting burnt out because you hate what you do. Either you hate programming, hate sitting at a desk all day, or you hate the products you're building, or you hate the culture of the company you work for. Figure out which one it is and think about how you'd change that. If it's sitting in an office, you need to work from home and then become location independent so you can work from a cabin in the mountains or a bungalow on an island, or just a state park or your back yard. If it's the products you're building or the culture of your company, figure out exactly what it is, and find a different place to work that doesn't have these problems. Often, you're the kind of person that wants yo get things done and the culture of your company is such that everything is bureaucratic in nature. Or the company has a "work hard play hard" mythology or some other bullshit culture. Or you don't believe in the products you're building and selling your integrity, that can really ruin people.<p>I quit without notice 6 years ago and haven't looked back. I haven't worked in an office for 6 years, I haven't built something that makes me ashamed of myself in 6 years, I haven't rationalized why this thing I don't want to do is actually good, or why it doesn't matter because I'm just doing my job. I haven't been a cog in a machine for 6 years. I've done freelance work as needed, other gig work as needed, I have never been happier. I found my wife out here in the world living this way, started a family, my days are filled with spending time with people I love, working on things I'm proud to be working on, and enjoying the outdoors.<p>A fundamental aspect to how you're feeling is that, for whatever reason, you aren't happy with how you're living life, yet you continue to live that way because of some external expectation. Figure out which part of your life you hate, whether it's the city, programming, the particular products you're building, whatever it is. You're clinging to them for some external reason. Your parents will lose respect for you, or your friends will think you're a loser, or you've internalized craving of status, or something like that. Throw that bullshit away, you have one life, live it how you want, other people are not going to hunt down happiness for you so their expectations should be the farthest thing from your mind.<p>The first thing you need to do is downsize. You almost certainly have enormous expenses that are keeping you on the treadmill. Get rid of all of it, if you don't have kids counting on you, chances are almost everything you have and pay for you don't need, and are keeping them at least partly to look successful to others. Ditch them all. Especially, ditch the feeling that if people think you're a loser it makes you a loser.<p>Go get an RV or a van for 5 grand. Go out in the world and be a leaf on the wind. I literally threw a dart at the map and met the love of my life there. Get rid of all bills, find the cheapest place to park and just live there for a while. Go flip burgers to make your 300 a month rent. Go to a state park and pick up trash for free stays. Do something else, use your imagination. Go be a fire watcher for a season. Whatever you do, you're carrying around a ball and chain and you need to rid yourself of it, because you're sinking, and although on paper your path is the right one, what you're feeling is telling you that it's not, some part of you is screaming at you to save yourself, listen to it.