I'm 25 now and am currently working at the most senior position I can be at in the field I wanted to be in. Not only this, I'm working on some of the best work out there and am making 3x more than what someone with my experience and age should be making.

That being said, this was not my intention at all. I went to art school, and I wanted to go into design. I purposely chose not to go to a normal university or do what my parents did (engineering or being a doctor) because, in an odd form of maturity, 18 year old me accepted the fact that I could never work a job because it paid well. I'd much rather barely scrape by and love what I do than hate my job but get paid a bunch.

This was an extremely hard thing for my parents to grasp, and they half-agreed to what I was doing. I was on loans for two years and they agreed to pay for the other half of schooling.

It also didn't help that when I first started off in school, I sucked at what I was doing. Guys, a word of advice for anyone who wants to get into a creative field. There will be people who are more naturally talented than you. This isn't book learning; you can't force yourself to be a better artist than someone who's more talented than you.

I ended up initially changing my major three times, until I found one that stuck (digital art direction). It was also scary, but it was only until my junior year of college that I finally found something that I was really good at, and really passionate about.

Despite the fact that there were a lot of people who were more well connected than me and more talented than me, I never gave up. I knew that the grind was going to be hard, so I kept going at it. This wasn't just a career for me, I knew that if I had to go this route, it had to be my life.

This meant that there would be times where I would leave parties earlier to go focus on my work. When a project was done and I got a decent grade on it, I still went and tweaked it to make sure that it was up to my standards.

The drive actually made it so that I have a much better work ethic than most, and was willing to fail harder and quickly learn from my mistakes to make my work better than most people, who started off on top and then became stagnant.

This lead me to working initially at a place that paid me well, much better than most in my field. But, because I was never motivated my money, this didn't really affect my lifestyle. I lived in a studio apartment that was well below my means, still did my grocery shopping and would take public transportation wherever I went. Everything that I had from college suited my needs, so outside of occasionally buying clothing and buying a bike (which in the long run ended up saving me money), I never lived a pretty conservative lifestyle.

After two years of working here, I unexpectedly was part of a group layoff. It wasn't performance based (in my line of work, group layoffs are a pretty common thing), but still, I didn't really plan for this.

After being unemployed for three months, my drive was still there and I ended up landing a job which was two positions higher and paid three times the amount of what my old job was. Which was crazy to me. At this point in my life, all I wanted to do was just work again so I can pay for rent. Now, I had stock options, a moving stipend and was going to move across the country to my dream city.

So, in an odd scenario, I'm currently am fulfilling both requirements, where I am very proud of my job and the work I do, and it pays me very well.

Honestly? The big difference right now is that I've got a more different work-life balance. I work more, but that's probably expected that I'm getting paid more.

Everything else is pretty much the same. I still wear roughly the same clothes, am living in a place that's below my means and am living a generally frugal lifestyle.

I have decided to splurge a tiny bit more. I bought a car (which is more of a necessity, so I justify the purchase in the same vein as my bike from before) and I visit my friends and family more since I can pay for flights. But the money hasn't gotten to me.

I think this ended up working well for me, because since I had a slow burn, going from college living, to being an adult, and then now an adult who has more spending money, I've learned to be humble about my spending habits and how to live comfortably and happily in my means.

I still look and act like I was back in college, and am proud to say that I never had to compromise myself at all to be where I am at. I am quite lucky in that regard. I know that for friends who ended up in similar situations in different fields, they had to compromise themselves a lot to be successful.

I also know that in my field (design), generally speaking it's an extremely tough field to be successful in. Most people I know are either not getting promotions or making lower than national average for salary in major cities (places like NYC, Chicago or SF). Some of these guys aren't working jobs in our field, getting non-degree jobs (food service or retail). Not that I have anything against this, but just reiterating that my field is a tough one, where you aren't really guaranteed a job just because you had a portfolio and a degree.

After a bit, you do start to realize that you need to grow up and figure out how you want the world to perceive you. While I am okay with who I am, I did know that I had to slightly mature to be more successful. But, I'm still a dork, I still make stupid dick jokes while at work and I am a massive nerd.

That will never change. Despite where I'm at now, I will never choose to take up a position that will pay me more, but will not make me happy at my job, or change who I am. I was never in it for the money, I just want to be happy with who I am and what I'm doing for most of my day.