Here's some concrete advice from someone ~3x your age who started programming at about the same time.
1. Keep at least one project going just for the fun of it. Remember the joy you've found in programming, and never lose it. A friend of mine is reverse-engineering the Civ IV AI so he can write mods for it. This will not make him famous or wealthy, but serves as something to look forward to when he's not pumping for The Man.
2. Stay in good shape physically. _Mens sana in corpore sano_ and all that. Your body is not just a dumb flesh robot that carries your brain around -- and even if it were, that enough is good reason to keep it healthy.
3. Learn to work with people remotely on important things. Find interesting or useful open source projects and contribute to them. The technical aspects will be easier than the social ones, likely. These are important skills. Vanishingly little non-trivial software is made by one person.
4. Keep learning programming languages. Software engineering is a discipline abstract from its tools. The more languages you learn the more approaches you will have to problems. E.g., learn lisp -- it'll permanently rewire parts of your brain.
1. Keep at least one project going just for the fun of it. Remember the joy you've found in programming, and never lose it. A friend of mine is reverse-engineering the Civ IV AI so he can write mods for it. This will not make him famous or wealthy, but serves as something to look forward to when he's not pumping for The Man.
2. Stay in good shape physically. _Mens sana in corpore sano_ and all that. Your body is not just a dumb flesh robot that carries your brain around -- and even if it were, that enough is good reason to keep it healthy.
3. Learn to work with people remotely on important things. Find interesting or useful open source projects and contribute to them. The technical aspects will be easier than the social ones, likely. These are important skills. Vanishingly little non-trivial software is made by one person.
4. Keep learning programming languages. Software engineering is a discipline abstract from its tools. The more languages you learn the more approaches you will have to problems. E.g., learn lisp -- it'll permanently rewire parts of your brain.