Are you willing to share any more details about how you made this happen? A lot of what you wrote really resonated with me. There's a side project I've been working on for 2 years (and hope to monetize soon) and even though the honeymoon phase of "new project" is well past, I still am so excited to work on it every day.

But I *hate* work, for all the reasons you and others in this thread have mentioned. Recently it's gotten bad enough that I dread getting out of bed in the morning--but I still love getting off work and being able to hack on my side project. I'm constantly being exposed to advice on HN and the like that entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, but goddamn if it still doesn't seem like the best thing in the world to me. I don't need a huge salary or even great work-life balance (at this stage of my life, anyway), but I definitely do feel the need to work on something I actually give a shit about and have that freedom of owning the product myself.