A developer writing for the DEV Community confesses a troubling shift in their creative process. Where they once wrestled with code to find a solution, their first instinct is now to prompt an AI. They worry this superpower is creating a weaker, more dependent engineer, outsourcing the very act of creation and problem-solving they once cherished.

This reflex has eroded their core abilities. The blank editor now inspires anxiety, not possibility. Debugging patience has vanished, replaced by a quick copy-paste of error messages. They gain the 'what' but lose the 'why,' the structural understanding that only comes from the struggle. Their most improved skill isn't coding; it's prompting.

The result is a strange paradox: a feeling of moving fast while running in place. This isn't the deep burnout from intense focus, but the shallow exhaustion of constant context-switching. To fight back, the developer is starting small with no-AI coding hours and building tiny projects to reclaim their own thinking process and curiosity.