Right now I'm doing consulting for two companies, maybe a couple of hours per week, mostly having downtime and trying to expand on my machine learning knowledge.

But in general, every job I've had has been "high pay and high enjoyment" even when I initially had "shit pay" compared to other programmers, and the product wasn't really fun, I was still programming, an activity I still love.

Compare this to the jobs I did before, where the physical toll makes it impossible to do anything after work as you're exhausted, and even if I got paid more than my first programming job, that your body is literally unable to move once you get home, makes the pay matter less and feel less.

But for a programmer, you can literally sit still all day, have some meetings in a warm office, talk with some people, type some things into a document, sit and think for a while, and in the end of the month you get a paycheck.

If you never worked in another profession, I think you ("The Programmer") don't realize how lucky you are compared to the rest of the world.

It's a good perspective to keep. I've also worked a lot of crappy jobs. Overnights in a grocery store (IIRC, they paid an extra .50/hour to work overnights), fine dining waiter (this one was actually fun, but the partying was too much), on a landscaping crew, etc... I make more money than I ever thought possible growing up. My dad still can't believe I have job 'playing on the computer' all day, though I mostly manage now.

A useful viewpoint.

I too have worked in shit jobs. I too appreciate that I am currently in a 70F room of my house, wearing a T-shirt and comfy pants, and able to pet my doggos at will.

Mental exhaustion is a thing, too.

I work remote and i hate it, sitting all day is killing me, my 5 minute daily stand-up is nowhere near enough social interaction for a whole day's work. I've been looking for a role better suited to me for over a year, but the market is miserable.

I miss having jobs where at least a lot of the time i was moving around or working directly with other people. More than anything else i miss casual conversation with coworkers (which still happened with excruciating rarity even when i was doing most of my programming in an office).

I'm glad you love programming and find the career ideal. I don't mean to harp or whine, just pointing out your ideals aren't universal even amount programmers.