A lot of the time I feel the same way, just a bit more broadly, that everything I do must improve me in some way, especially in the technical realm (I'm a software engineer as well). Even when I do stuff for "fun", I try to be strict about it and sort of analyse the fun to make sure I'm getting my time's worth.

But then reading your message made me think: this sounds a lot like Sartre's waiter [1]. I don't think I can change the way I feel and approach life, and I'm quite comfortable with my approach, but if you're not and you want to make a change, you might want to dig into why that's the case.

[1] https://existentialcomics.com/comic/101