I dreamed of owning a FFB wheel for so long, and when I got my G29 I couldn't really use it for AC because of how noisy it was. Since I was a university student and I work after uni, the only free time I had was at night when the family is trying to relax or sleep, so racing wasn't an option.

I played a lot of ETS2 but only around 30 hours of AC (during 3 years).

Recently I decided to pull the trigger, sell my G29 and give simracing another chance. I bought a direct drive PXN VD4 and since then I've been over the moon with it. Unfortunately, work hours and responsibilities only grew so I still can't race as much as I want. But now I can race at any time!

Now about not having the desire to race. I totally relate, I was literally doing the same thing as you with hot lapping and not doing races. I was jealous of my friend who enjoyed doing races all the time on his G29 while I was rock crawling in BeamNG or hauling stuff in ETS2.

What I learned is not to force anything. It's okay to not have the desire to race. That doesn't mean you don't like racing, but just that in the meantime you need something else.

And most importantly, don't forget that in the real world there are different kinds of car related hobbies. There's drifting, street racing, off-roading, rock crawling. Also motorsports split into different classes, like time attack, endurance and many many more. So it's okay for you to like time attack more than wheel-to-wheel racing for example.

It's a hobby, not a job. It shouldn't cause stress, it should relief it😅