I wasn't quite so typical. I was a college screw up. I knew I wanted to go to college, but I never figured out what I wanted to do. I was all set to go back to school for business when we had a family gathering. I talked with a relative who was a pilot for a well known regional. (I guess I knew he was a pilot, but it never really came up for conversation). He convinced me a mere 5 days before school was going to start that it would be fun (and easy) to be a pilot. I signed up for a local college flight program. I went there, and after my first flight ( I had only been on an airplane once before that) I knew I wanted to be an airline pilot. Some career things have changed since, but I still love to fly. I didn't play with a flight sim until after I had started learning to fly. I guess I just fluked my way into it.