"I go to college (but rarely attend classes), and in general am not a little boy anymore. "<p>... That is not what I'd call 'mature'. But at least it matches the rest of the post.<p>When you're a little older, you'll look back and think, "I could have been getting paid to learn these things. I would have had co-workers to look up to and learn from. Everything would have been so much easier if I'd been working for others instead of blindly chasing my dreams. If I had worked for others, I could accomplish my dream today, instead of struggling so much."<p>You know how I know this? Because it happened to me. I think about all the things I could have learned if I had started my professional programming career 10 years earlier, instead of going off and doing whatever I wanted to. I say this because I've learned more about programming in the past 5 years than entire rest of my life combined. And enjoined every bit of it. Even more so than fiddling with my own projects.<p>And now I'm in a position to actually pursue my own projects, confident that most of the newbie mistakes are behind me and I can concentrate on getting things done.<p>So no, you aren't smarter than your elders. You just think you are, like every other kid out there.