I did. Now 3 years have gone by.

I quit because like many here I was totally unfulfilled with what I was doing day-to-day. Feeling like I'm wasting my life away for a (not even great) paycheck.

I was thrilled with the freedom and agency it brought me, and had a long list of things I wanted to do. I went to see family and friends I hand't seen in a while, then took a multi-month trip in the mountains while reading, learning and programming whatever I wanted to.

Then had a baby, which wasn't planned, but turned into the most important and meaningful thing in my life. Time went by, the market went down, AI, etc. I started trying finding a job about a year in, and it's really tough. Even worse, everything I hated about work seems to be generally worse now everywhere.

Not sure what to do.