Pretty much the same story for me (though I dropped out of college after 3 years, and wasn’t studying anything related to my career anyhow). I also moved out of home when I was 16, and had to work evening jobs to finish high school.
But as the above commenter points out, toil by itself is useless. I found an job which gave me the opportunity to learn, so all of my toil was ultimately improving my marketable skills. I also had to use initiative to create all of my own learning opportunities in this job. When I started in that job the pay was very low, it gradually improved over a few years, but I honestly would have been fine even if it didn’t. Because when I left that company I nearly tripled my salary, and it’s been going up steadily ever since.
That’s also not to say that any of that was necessary. None of the peers I had who were around the same age as me in the beginning worked anywhere near the same amount I did. They all have comfortable careers now, and are absolutely successful. However I can now demand much more from my employers than any of them can (salary, working conditions, perks...). I simply wanted more from my career, so I invested more into it, and got a greater return.
