A few years ago I was in college. I came to some stunning realizations: I not only sucked at math, I HATED math. Also, C++ was all the rage and people at my U were also all about "elegant" programming solutions. I so had it drilled into my head that I'd have to get with the program or I'd never go anywhere, that I went lateral and changed majors. Now I work for a small newspaper for not much pay and my wife and I barely scrape by.

But you know what? I don't really regret it. Not really. I've heard too many horror stories written and told by people who worked for a few years, and by 28 they were burned-out husks working at McDonalds.

Not that the newspaper life is good for the soul, but at least I'm not being judged on how many thousands of lines of code I write. That has to be the stupidest metric I've ever heard of. Thank God I had the sense to get away from that.