[ericnolte]

I'm a bit lazy so I'm going to copy/paste this from a Reddit reply I made earlier this week. But, the story is what I'm very thankful for this year:

I don't have any directly related advice but let me give you some advice anyways. About a year ago I asked this subreddit for help on starting a niche website that would compete with the likes of Etsy, Ebay, Tindie, and Amazon. I was working as a body shop manager at the time and knew absolutely nothing about web development, programming, or anything particularly tech-related. Of course, I got a lot of flack from our fellow redditors. So, after feeling a bit beat down, I tried to take their negative comments as inspiration and began learning as much as I could about web development. Now, just a year later, I'm working as web dev for a large multi-national firm that makes a substantial impact in some major aspects of the web. I'm much happier, living in a new awesome city, and making significantly more money than I was this time last year in result. I haven't realized my original idea that began this journey of mine but, none the less, the dream made a huge difference in my future. So, whatever you do, please, please, PLEASE don't let anyone here degrade your ambition. TLDR Fuck 'em.

And TLDR - Hacker News Version - Left years spend in a non-tech career, spent a year studying hard and traveling, and now am super happy working as a web developer!