>was a smart cookie as a youngster
>went to university and hated my subject
>didn't enjoy it at all
>was a loser with no friends and extremely depressed
>got through it and got my degree but with the bare minimum work
>realised I dun goofed by not going to an elite university
>realised I dun goofed by not doing math or physics
>now work in a respectable white collar job but it's brainless

Apart from programming, what other productive areas are there for someone who wants to do smart people stuff like applied math, without having a job in the areas?

I feel so sad that I have never been in a high pressure environment. I think my awful university experience made me in to a lazy person.

I feel so sad that my degree was so boring. I did a chemistry degree. Doing a degree at a non-elite university was so demotivating because the courses were much easier than comparable courses at better universities, so what was the point? And as a non-math major, I knew it would not lead to anything profound. I was in the middle of my degree when AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol and I felt so sad knowing that I'd never contribute to something like that.