Actual Facts
1. I'm from a part of Australia where - never mind the spiders - the sun itself feels like it's trying to kill you and the natural environment is dry brown the entire year round. (Other parts of Australia are beautiful though.)
2. I moved as far away from there as possible, literally to the other side of the world to Canada, and chose to live in a place that has snow 6-8 months of the year that everyone else wants to get away from. I find it beautiful, but the people here think I'm crazy.
3. While in Australia, I quit a high paying programming job to instead pursue photography via a Diploma of Photo Imaging. In no way did this prepare me for having a career as a photographer. What it did give me was a working knowledge of the photography industry as a whole and a reasonable foundation for me to go off and learn how to actually do photography on my own.
4. Actually doing photography on my own taught me I actually don't want to be a photographer. Instead, I'm much happier using my technical skills with computers and Adobe Photoshop working full time as a photo retoucher in the fashion industry. I've been doing this in Canada since 2020.
5. What I did very much enjoy about being a photographer was the ability to make people feel confident about themselves and proud of their own accomplishments. (Myself included.) But I can't deny that I am 100% introverted so I'd much rather be behind the scenes in a support role than to be someone famous.