You love what you become good at (even though you suck at it at first)

The path to a calling is far less obvious for most of us.

My journey towards coding was hard to predict. I spent my childhood and teens playing basketball and all I could imagine myself doing one day was play pro ball. I wasn't particularly gifted at basketball and any results I had came from grit (which had a second order benefit of teaching me that I can be resilient).

I picked software engineering during college because I always enjoyed math but I really disliked coding for a while. If you asked me back then, I would've said I can't see myself doing this long-term.

It took a few years to get there but I still remember that first checkpoint during any skill development when you think "hey, I'm actually pretty good at this". That's what actually sparked the fire and I never looked back.

These days I find coding incredibly fulfilling and I can truly say that I love what I do intrinsically and fanatically. But boy oh boy did it take a while to get here.