@jacob - A path that needs walking indeed. I am starting to wonder if one can do the equivalent of spiritual bypassing with Kegan levels where one just tries to skip over K3 without fully integrating the lessons of that level. Or if one is in a hostile social environment during those critical years, K3 lessons become more the shadow and less the ego. I'm thinking what I might need to do is be more conscious about my actual needs and how to fulfill them. I grew up in an environment (religious cult) where no one was allowed to have any needs ever (
Turn It Off!), and I am wondering if this is now the problem.
For example, I do think I have a need to do something socially useful, and writing banking software is at least a useful task, so this is keeping me trapped here. I think I might need to consider how I can do useful things with other people outside of the employment framework.
@mythicalman30 - Thanks for sharing your story. It's always good to see examples of where people do turn things around and pursue something they are more interested in. I have considered going back to school for something like an Arts degree for the networking connections and the structure, even if I don't specifically need the degree.
Wrt Brene Brown, I have tried to get into her work because she is suggested often, but she was way too crunchy for me to handle. Also as @ertyu mentions, she has this heavily pro-spiritual bias that does not work for me as an atheist and someone who has a lot of what the cool kids are calling religious trauma from aforementioned religious cult upbringing. Indeed, I was reading
The Gift of Imperfection, and I was baffled as to how she is as enormously popular as she is because she seems to say exactly nothing at all. I found she wasn't a good fit for the more serious psychological demons I'm battling. ACT has been a better fit because it owns up to the premise that life is difficult right away, and that just clicks with me better.
@zbigi - It's definitely an American work culture problem, although I've found that tech jobs have increasingly enshittified since I started my career. When I started, it wasn't nearly as bad, and I'd go to lunch with coworkers, they'd send us to conferences on the company's dime, we'd have holiday parties, etc.
But the environment has gotten significantly worse in the past few years as companies enshittify. The place I last worked at was particularly horrible. The first two years I was there, it was okay, but we got a new Jack Welsch CEO who wanted to run the employees into the ground and offshore half the team. Really in retrospect, I should have seen the lay off coming sooner, because from day 1 this year the company was doing obvious things to try to make me quit (micromanagement, not giving me any useful work, constant criticism, etc).
And when they layoff did happen, I didn't just directly get laid off, they tried to put me on a PIP that was an obvious exit ticket and I just used my FU money to leave because fuck getting put on a PIP.
I was in the Dutch part of Belgium just last week, and I was a bit taken aback at how just
not shitty it was. The streets were clean, they had bicycle lanes everywhere, people seemed actually happy, there were no billboards. America is on the downward swing of late capitalism so I don't expect this problem to get any better, although of course the entire point of ERE is navigating this problem by being creative with your own lifestyle.
In other news, that job I interviewed for yesterday is very likely going to send me a job offer soon. It's for a Deep State government contracting position for 1 year, pays $70/hr, and is fully remote. I am very much considering taking this so I don't have to worry about my overpriced rent this year, plus no roommate, and government + remote means it's not going to be that difficult and then I can figure out the rest of my problems without being stressed over my housing situation.
For me personally, what I am trying to focus on is moving past this notion that anything will "save" me or be "the truth" because I get outrageously stuck inside my own head, and the inside of my head is not a nice place to be. I think what I really need to do above anything else is just live my life and deal with my emotional hangups. 
).