again and again, i encounter people in my circles of well-employed colleagues who do not realize how lucky they are to have interests coinciding with aptitudes

again and again, i encounter people in my circles of well-employed colleagues who do not realize how lucky they are to have interests coinciding with aptitudes coinciding with particular economic demands in their productive years. and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory. It's one of the things that delayed my entry into the technical profession. I grew up a passionate and involved hobbyist, but seeing this kind of self-aggrandising Randian narrative played out over and over in forums and bodies of knowledge that I considered proxies for the values of the profession (i.e. Slashdot) nauseated me. For a long time, I was determined not to go into tech out of loathing for the idea of working with such people. Ultimately, I went anyway, and realised--as teenagers are wont to do once they grow up--that any world is more diverse than meets the eye. But I can definitely say that the mythos of the well-earning "self-made" IT man was a major blemish on the idea, not an asset.