cause like, yeah, it's good to know how to write optimal code and how to make it elegant and easy to maintain, sure!

but one thing you have to maintain is your brain. If you're constantly driving your programming brain at maximum speed, maximum awareness of all possible caveats and vulnerabilities, always considering "how will I maintain this code in ten years time?" you're going to burn yourself out.

You're associating programming with a high-stress high-attention activity. That's going to make programming something that's categorized in your brain as no fun, never relaxing, never something you do just cause it would be interesting... you're going to start dreading it, even just a little. "oh well, let's get this over with."

That's not a good way to think about it in the long run.

we often say that programming is more an art than a science, but we need to treat it like one too.

Sometimes you need to paint a sunset not because someone paid you to paint a sunset, but because it'd be fun to paint a sunset.