Mark, if you have truly burned out, which is rare for this industry, then I would suggest selling all that gear, get the Hell off the music forums, walk away and don't look back. Nothing said here, apparently, is really going to change your mind.

I did the exact same thing when I worked in medicine. After 15 years, working 80 to 100-hour weeks, I burned out. I was down to 145 pounds, like the walking dead, and had badly neglected my family for 15 years. I walked away in 1975 and never looked back. This despite many, many offers from various medical facilities to work for them at a much higher salary.

Therefore, if you can financially do it, and you have truly burned out, take the money from the gear you sell on Ebay or wherever, and use it to do something that has been on your bucket list forever. Life is way too damned short to do things you really don't enjoy doing. For a half-century I've been slowly but surely nibbling down that bucket list, but something always seems to be added to the bucket, which is not a bad thing. I took a big chunk out of the bucket, though, when I purchased that 33-foot Morgan Out Island sailboat, set sail, pointed the bow south, and sailed it to the Florida Keys. I had the best of both worlds, living aboard the boat, playing music in the Tiki Bars, and enjoying a dress code where formal was considered clean shorts, Hawaiian shirt and sandals.

Now, I still love playing music, but I also love sailing to far-off places and meeting people from all walks of life. If there ever comes a time when there's not a song playing in the cobwebs of my aging mind, it will mean I TOO have either burned out, or I died but no one told me yet.

Gotta go to work! Another happy hour job this afternoon,

Gary