Whew, so many thoughts surfaced as I read this. (one of your best articles).

I too originally planned to major in psychology, most likely because of a great teacher I had in high school. I learned it took too many years of schooling to get anywhere so I turned my attention to art because of another high school mentor/teacher. Doesn't pay well so I switched to business so make money but my interest pulled me into the technology side because my dad was a huge tech hobbyist and influenced me in my youth. None of these were solo decisions of mine - they were heavily influenced by others.

I read a book "The Drunkard's Walk - How Randomness Rules Our Lives" by Leonard Mlodinow (also a co-writer of Stephen Hawking books). It hypothesizes that most everything in our lives is heavily influenced by people we run into. Thus our lives are more like ricocheting pinballs than trail maps.

-sorry for long reply :)