Go back to basics!
Evolution is not fast enough, our bodies are still lagging and attuned to 10000 year old habits, such as existing in nature, walking and working in the fields.
Though not advocating to go back 10000 years but at least walk and spend sometime in the nature, trek etc.
Believe me it works
Excellent comments but I feel #2 is only more relevant than other 2.
Professor Sarasvathy explains the “Bird-in-hand principle, which is
Start with Who you are,
What you know and
Whom you know.
Number 1( Product Ideas) can be found after brainstorming. StumbleUpon was started by Garrett M. Camp( Co-founder of UBER) and they simply filtered this idea out of 6 ideas.
Number #3 is related to how resourceful you are. Mark Mark Zuckerberg did not have any money when he started Facebook. Nowadays technology is almost free so why you need money. If you need to know programming then learn it from free SaaS based resources.
Man is born entrepreneur( "The Startup of You", Reid Hoffman beautifully described it), in ancient times there was no employee-employer system developed so individuals have to be resourceful to survive.
I suggest you to "Just do it!" and build something in which you have passion and create value. Don't worry to much about capturing value( getting rich). If your passion is true then whole universe conspires to help you-Paulo Coelo( The Alchimist)
By letting you go, your employer lost a courageous and honest resource so it was not your loss at all.Secondly, I think you don't have serious issue as you are in the right framework of mind to confront and identify the problem.
Try to take project out of Elance and Odesk and if you think you have real good skills that are not valued in Chicago then move to place where your skill set has value. Valley is extremely good technology cluster but Boston,Austin and Seattle are also not bad.
