Just don't give up if you want to do something everything takes time. My ex does craft. She sometimes would crochet something in front of people. Some would say they could do what she did. Great, we encouraged them. Some came back and could understand how it seemed so easy when she did it. As she said, "what most people see as 30 minutes of work really took me over 30 years of experience to do."
It's the same with me and programming (well certain specific tasks). I may be able to troubleshoot a few thousand lines of code in a few minutes, but it took me years to get there.. and I still suck, but that's because I'm out of practice. I still feel like (unwarranted) a genius around most people, just not other programmers, but only about computers. I know most people have a skill they excel at or at least the ability to be good at something, so my thinking I'm a genius is my own stupid mind because I know I suck at life more than most people. I sacrificed so much time for a lot of antenna propagation, cooking, management, farming, retail sales,... Well, skills I don't even use anymore when I could've been doing what I wanted and just stuck to programming. I've taught people how to program who program better than me now and make more money than me (at least they all did when I lost track of them). And what did I do at the time? Curriculum. Library work. Construction. They go doing what I want after I train them and why? Because I don't follow my own heart and do what I love to do. I've worked for one programming firm... Well two, but for one I did QA mainly (and IT doesn't count either). I did well (granted it was web stuff which is easy... except for design which I suck at). Hell, other programmers around were fired, because they couldn't keep up. What happened? I got obsessed with RSA challenges and number theory so much that I lost the work... Well, and my house. And ultimately my wife. And have never really recovered from that. Now I'm old and am helping my ex with completing out the divorce in two counties and no longer know where to even go. I am back in the States and haven't slept on my own bed in years. I have been thinking about contacting the VA again, but I have a problem spelling out what's really wrong. I guess it's a long standing mental depression issues. Where I'm at now is... Well, it's unnerving. I'm in the middle of nowhere. I lived on an island in Brazil and had more people and things around... I'm talking too much... And in public. Either way, follow your dreams and maintain focus. If you don't you might end up all over the board with nothing tangible to show for your life. Hell, you might still do that, but at least do what you love along the way.