I follow Andreas on twitter and he is a big inspiration for me when I go look at more challenging problems now.
I have an addictive personality, so far cigarettes are the only thing that got me and only for 4 years, but I largely stay away anything else now because I see how it effected members of my family and how easily someone like myself could go the same way.
Because of that I very much appreciate channeling yourself into something as ambitious as an operating system instead. It's actually the same way I've built any of my best work and how I've gotten even this far in my career. The line I say is: programming keeps me sane.