I really do think some people are late bloomers who need to adjust to difficulties or gain new understandings before they find their niches. My grandfather was an engineer and wanted my father to do the same, but he instead pursued a degree in philosophy and started programming after the first two of his four children were born in order to provide for them. He's still cleaning up other people's bungling at 61, far past the age where most people become obsolete in his field. Not everyone simply leaps and lands on what's right for them, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything.