Well, I'm so fed up with feeling a failure after all that effort that I'm kicking my past young self in the arse for not joining the merchant-navy when I could (too old for that now too). So - no it's not going overly well(1). Yet I have had 5 jobs up to now in IT and I got them all without any network push so that probably has given me a warped view of how things actually work.

(1) I have a job atm. It's mostly the prospects that fear me out.