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I'm a new developer and still learning, but I feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of things to learn and it seems like coding is taking over my brain. While sometimes I enjoy getting sucked into it all, other times I feel like I can't escape it and haven't really figured out how to turn it off.

Meanwhile, when reading posts on communities like this one (DEV) and other developer-focused sites, it feels like everyone is "on" all the time. I imagine developers leaving their day jobs and coming home to write more code or write about coding and, to be honest, it freaks me out. I feel like I'm not doing enough.

If I want to be a developer, must I spend all of my waking hours practicing and thinking about code? Is it okay for software development to just be a job or should it effect my whole lifestyle?