mind telling more about your experience on this?
how far would you say "getting out of your comfort zone" did you reach?
how did programming affected your life (seems like you meant you spent too much time doing so before getting to that... how was it?)
Personally after college, I had four goals: 1) be able to bench-press 200lb, 2) play guitar in a band/be able to improvise, solo, play at performance tempo etc., 3) be able to play pick-up basketball and win more games for my team than lose, 4) to approach women and other people in bar and other urban scenario's and f-close or the social equivalent.
No, I haven't completely achieved all of my goals although I have gone very far in all of them. But I'm not as anxious about them nor about admitting on my shortcomings on my goals in public; like in programming, at a point you develop a sense of confidence that even on a long programming project, it's only a matter a time that you will finish it. It's just a sequence of iterations of coding & debugging.
How did programming affect my life? It made me a nerd with inferiority-superiority complex who on one hand views average human beings as automatons who let their sense of social insecurity get in their way; and who on the other hand is insecure himself, requires constant social re-assurances, stroking of the ego and (most importantly) sexual gratification. And for that, I'm eternally indebted to programming.
