passion … whatever. programming sux, but it pays the bills. the reason it sux is that it’s completely superfluous, like much in modern life, e.g. paying bills. in all these thousands of years we still haven’t worked out how to live without such nuisance. but, myself also being human and living in this day and age, i have similar problems. i have been hanging in there for 20+ years. I really enjoyed some of the papers at uni, but work has mostly been just that. the thing i like the most about this job is the people you meet. having someone on your team who is way better than you in ways you want to be better is very helpful. unfortunatly i haven’t found anyone willing to pay me for working on problems i find interesting and finding the motivation to do so in your spare time can be hard. now that I have found elixir though i’d like to give a personal project a real go. count yourself lucky for not being stuck with .net 
more.urgent.jest
tio407
tio407
dimitarvp
Motivation and productivity are usually sinusoid curves. There are cyclical ups and downs. That’s why their value has to be averaged over at least 6 weeks. I’ve had weeks where I did 6-7 days worth of work in a single day, and I’ve had perioids where I couldn’t replicate those previous results even after 10 work days.
I am not sure if any of us can give you a good advice in terms of a potential existential crisis or a dramatic career course change. But in any case, do your best to try different things in programming and then make a judgement. As I mentioned, you might simply have a rather boring work place (which many of them are, and programming is also a creative profession, not only mechanical).
dimitarvp
You are never truly stuck unless chained in a dungeon. You might be uncomfortable trying to make a big turn in your career – say, work with Elixir instead of C# – but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck in the strict sense.
It’s never too late. Unless you are burned out and want to exit IT in general and just go be a surf instructor. 
more.urgent.jest
it pretty much is when you have family and can’t afford to take a pay cut.
as i said though, i’m going to try to give a personal elixir project a go. something with phoenix and graphics / graphs. down the road maybe some distributed system like a peer to peer http server / client (is there already such a thing? does it even make sense?). looks like there already are some: Peer-to-peer web hosting - Wikipedia
i also do have a vague plan for getting out of that trap, it’s just going to take time and effort, i.e. buy some land and start developing it along permaculture lines. unfortunatly i can’t surf and there aren’t any decent waves in most of Germany.
if there’s one thing i have learned in 20+ years in IT it’s that stressing out doesn’t pay. the IT sand shifts so fast that you can spend considerable effort on something that’s obsolete in a trice.
wanton7
Check out Microsoft Orleans virtual actor framework. That really makes .NET programming nicer because it uses turn based concurrency. Meaning you program these virtual actors like they are single threaded. It’s here GitHub - dotnet/orleans: Cloud Native application framework for .NET · GitHub
There is also upcoming virtual actor & microservices based platform called Dapr from Microsoft that is little bit similar, that is not made with .NET. But it supports basically any language because it uses sidecar approach where app made with Go runs side by side with your app and your app only communicates with it. Currently SDKs for .NET and Java are most complete and I think Python SDK just got an update to support actors as well. It’s here GitHub - dapr/dapr: Dapr is a portable runtime for building distributed applications across cloud and edge, combining event-driven architecture with workflow orchestration. · GitHub
GenericJam
I used to build houses for a living. Was I passionate about pounding nails or cutting boards? Not particularly although there is a certain joy in craftsmanship. I really liked seeing the house that I built.
Eventually, I ran my own construction company. If I hadn’t put in my time lower down the ladder I wouldn’t understand my business very well.
Programming is just a tool, just as computers are a tool. It comes down to what you use them for. At this point in your life you’re an apprentice but you won’t always be. Take advantage of this to learn at your employer’s expense.
You are actually really fortunate to have landed in Elixir early in your career (I’m kind of jealous). In my opinion it’s on the short list of languages that are pointing to where the future is going. Most languages treat threading as an afterthought but it’s baked into the BEAM. Not to mention all of the advantages of functional programming without even forcing you to learn functional programming.
If you get bored easily, you’re in good company, that’s almost the whole point. Get the computers to do the boring stuff for you. But this also opens up new avenues that were not previously available to you. Once you get these tools of automation on board, you’re only limited by your imagination. Like art? Make art with it. Like sport? Make a game or a tweet bot. Want to build a business? Now you can with very little personal risk (as compared to many other ventures).
There’s a reason that many of the wealthiest people in the world are tech entrepreneurs.
You are learning to wield the biggest lever mankind has discovered thus far. Use it well.
There is nothing that someone else has mastered that you cannot also master. We’re all just mortals.
Keep at it. You’ll do fine.
mkunikow
Ad my friend say you can’t programme all life. I would say after 40 you don’t be able to complete with younger programmes…
But serious there other related topics you could be interested:
Cloud like AWS GCP
Devops
Security dev sec ops
Data engineering
AI / Machine learning
BIG data
Being Archtect designing systems
The options are endless …
Used language/ technology is only tool. So would not be just focus on specific language , technology but I would seek a bigger picture you can be interested in.
What I can suggest try software engineer podcast as see what are you interested in.
more.urgent.jest
I just turned 50 and I agree I can’t compete with young programmers in terms of stamina, but I can in terms of experience and that does count for something.
give it some time and you’ll get ideas on what you want to do programming wise or something more interesting will come up.