This even applies to studying. It is better to get a 'proper degree' that is 'a job' (of sorts) than it is to study your hobby-interest. Imagine that you were

This even applies to studying. It is better to get a 'proper degree' that is 'a job' (of sorts) than it is to study your hobby-interest. Imagine that you were passionate about programming and already managed to get 'facial recognition for seagulls' working on your hand-me-down PC. You could go to university and then find that they start teaching you ASP.NET or ADA or some other dead language that only prepares you for the military or the city. Coding then becomes a matter of dread, herd mentality guessing what you are doing wrong and artificial deadlines. Or even at school this can happen, if Geography is your thing and you are a walking gazetteer, able to talk and learn from anyone no matter where they are from. So 'Geography' would be the natural thing to study, right? A few weeks in you realise that you are only ever going to learn how 'volcanoes work' and 'Geography' then becomes a chore.