Things where not easy for me, I used to get bully almost every day at school, older kids called me names and what not, but didn't stopped me there nor I felt down or anything like that... one day I stood to those guys, it when bad pretty quickly, I got a black eye and a month suspension, but after that I got bully no more, ever!...
I couldn't finish my degree on time, no money, no work, and sometimes very little to eat, it was bad, I did what anyone else would do, I quit school and went to work.
Every night after work I sat near a window on the 3rd floor of my building and turn on my PC(Pentium) and surf the internet see what was new, chat on MSN, Yahoo, LatinChat, Eros... a year went by, I wanted to go back to school and finish but it was that or pay my bill and eat, so I start searching for books online and ways to learn more as much as I could., three years went by., I went to school and told them my situation, I wanted to some how validate what I knew, I wanted my certification or a diploma or something to help me get a better job, they told me, sure
you can apply for the exam if you pass then you have to came every weekend for six month, if everything goes fine, you might get your degree, I was like hell yea! 
...So sad, I only went for four months
an unexpected event toke me back to my country., again couldn't finish it, a years went by when I got my first Microsoft certification, and then another, cisco, avaya, southbell, sun systems, another year went by before my very first client as a freelancer! I was soooo happy, I was still working cutting [* spam *], it was my first client!.So I wanted more and more! before I can call my self a freelance., I was doing ERPs and CRMs in COBOL, I wanted to do more web stuff..
That's when one day I came a cross a particular software PHPNuke! yup, that was my first CMS, I wanted to learn all about it a few months went by when one night I was looking for other CMS's when oohh boy, Mambo Server came on my list, I install it and fall in love with, learn all that was about it...
... many of you already know what happend between Mambo to Joomla, so when that happen I was like, what should I do, so, here I am since then.
Since then I have help many to get their Joomla website on, e-commerce, news portals, social sites, Joomla has been in great part responsible for me wanted to learn PhP, I haven't touch a single line of COBOL or Python for the last ten years., for the last nine years I have been working from home, I do work for an international company and I still do freelance.
The crazy thing of all, is that I have in a few occasion managed unintentionally migrate from software specialized in B2B to Joomla! isn't that crazy! they are happy using Joomla internally and public, true, hasn't been easy since I had to build my own component, plugins, modules, bridges to ERP's, CRM's, API consumption and whatever the client needs...
I still don't have a degree
I still want it, but don't need it any more, I already have my dream job, I wake up every day, pet my dogs, kiss my girl, get a coffee and go to my other room/office to work!I can now say that the developer's road is long and hard and sometimes almost impossible to walk, the only thing that change for me is the scenery and the coffee
.So, don't stop, you will get there.
Thank you Joomla Team!
