Why did you choose programming as a profession?

Asked on stackoverflow.com:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/362376/why-did-you-choose-programming-as-a-profession

My response --

I wanted to be a poet but my poetry sucked.

My Mom wanted me to become a doctor, but I didn't enjoy dissecting the pig in biology class and the thought of doing this on humans was ...a little sickening.

My Dad was a physicist and I had some talent for that, but frankly I had no chance as someone dabbling in pre-med and Engish against guys taking nothing but math and physics courses.

Luckily I remembered a friend told me (a Berkeley EE grad) that I would probably be good at programming, since I liked to play GO and was good at that. I tried a few programming courses and was hooked.