[JamesM]

With all due respect, young man, you haven't even STARTED.

Giving up before starting will never equal success.

As you get older, then you may define success differently, and I can almost guarantee that your goals will change, but in the meantime, dreaming is good.

Planning to be a "success" as you define it at your age is not to late or too early. (well, maybe a bit early). See a counselor about the path you should take for the career you desire. Then stick to it. It will not be exciting, and success may be twenty years or more down the road. If you want it, then you will persevere.

Too many people (younger and older) think that when they reach for success, then it will happen in the next year or two. It doesn't. It takes hard boring and tedious work. The ones who make it are the ones who keep going even when the goal seems not even possible.

A goal has an objective with details and a deadline. You simply (as I read it) want to be successful and maybe go to MIT, but there are no details or time line to make that goal something to shoot for.

A goal is not "I want to be successful." A goal is "I want to be a computer engineer making $40k by the age of 25 years old."

[Boundary Problem]

Don't give up. Life is a process and they say the most successful people just keep working on something until they achieve success.

So the difference between success and failure is generally investing hard work and patience. There is no particular magic to success.

But I do know some people that if they don't get instant success - they give up and would rather do nothing. I've never understood how they could be happy.

Anything worth doing is going to be difficult. But the rewards are immesurable. And success builds upon success. So when the next problem comes up, there are more resources at your disposal.