Yeah, it's luck. It's perfectly healthy to frame things as: I took a deep interest in computers for which expertise is now in high demand.
I'm in the same boat: loved computers early on and had no interest in pursuing them professionally (I was eight when I started programming). It's lucky because I could just as well have loved botany, or auto mechanics, or pottery, etc but I happened to pick the one that later in life was in high demand.
Sure, yeah, I worked hard, but not because "I want to make MONEY when I get older!" but simply because I had the interest (and supportive parents...luck again). The alignment of my early interests and market conditions today are 100% luck. And that's what you need: to be in the right place at the right time. I'd attribute my success to 10% personal factors and 90% external factors.
You still need to work your ass off for that 10%, but the other 90% is all out of your hands, and it's ok to acknowledge this (and that doesn't mean you feel guilty). In fact, if we ever want to create a world where the ratio is not 90/10, but 80/20 or 60/40 or dare I say 50/50, we need to acknowledge just how much of our lives is out of our control.
I'm in the same boat: loved computers early on and had no interest in pursuing them professionally (I was eight when I started programming). It's lucky because I could just as well have loved botany, or auto mechanics, or pottery, etc but I happened to pick the one that later in life was in high demand.
Sure, yeah, I worked hard, but not because "I want to make MONEY when I get older!" but simply because I had the interest (and supportive parents...luck again). The alignment of my early interests and market conditions today are 100% luck. And that's what you need: to be in the right place at the right time. I'd attribute my success to 10% personal factors and 90% external factors.
You still need to work your ass off for that 10%, but the other 90% is all out of your hands, and it's ok to acknowledge this (and that doesn't mean you feel guilty). In fact, if we ever want to create a world where the ratio is not 90/10, but 80/20 or 60/40 or dare I say 50/50, we need to acknowledge just how much of our lives is out of our control.