That's what hobbies are for - i.e. exploring other interests can make you more well-rounded, and occasionally give you marketable skills.

That's how programming started for a lot of us. Start playing with transistors, then discover 555s, 741s and discrete logic. Eventually discover micro controllers and start coding in assembly and the C. 10 years down, find yourself managing a large team of developers and you absolutely hate it :)

Continuing:

And so you start using your programming skills to travel the world while working, see some amazing places, but discover to your dismay that things aren't any better no matter where you go.

But you continue writing your own stuff, releasing open source programs here and there, and then somewhere along the way you move into freelancing, which removes the protective layer between you and unreasonable customers.

Tiring of that, you move into iPhone apps and discover that you suck at marketing.

And then one day you find yourself living in San Francisco, founding a startup with a bunch of awesome partners, working insane hours, and having a BLAST trying to solve hard problems.

There is much joy and wonder in this world; you just need to look harder.

I can so relate to that...

But then I think of other actual jobs that exist nowadays, and I conclude being a software dev might be the least worse.

Software is eating the world, after all.

Indeed, bugs are creatures of great appetite!

I often feel the same way. Also don't forget "the grass is always greener" syndrome.