Parents can give you opportunities. At about 12 they found me a computer science tutor, and that pretty much sealed by future career (for better). This was _NOT_ random. It was only one of a very long string of stuff they tried very deliberately in order to find my "thing".<p>As a kid I did briefly a whole lot of stuff, from swimming to skating dance to karate. Most of it didn't catch at all - I still have two left feet - but the stuff that did made a real difference. And almost all of it was at my parent's initiative.