I think the worst thing about it was that you could never just chill. It was friggin' relentless. Every day in high school's got a very do-or-die thing going on, for some reason, while at the same time feeling like the lowest-stakes thing possible. It was like stress for the sake of stress. Meanwhile those days are relatively rare in college and real life. Certainly not 5 days a week, every week, unless you seek out jobs like that. Granted the lower end of the job market's a lot less flexible and easy-going than, say, software development, but even that's usually not as bad as high school, which is pretty damning.
I remember being asked as early as 13 where I wanted to go to college, and what I wanted to do for a living, I'm 36, and I still cant give you the answer to that last question.
That question (what do you want to do for a living) is not that important, because most of us, for various reasons (but mostly market forces), cannot work the job we would prefer anyway.
I'd suggest based on empirical evidence most people in the tech world are more apt to flower later. So for some, their peak was at high school or college - for most of us, I suspect its early to mid thirties.
People are happiest either slightly before they have kids or slightly after their kids turn 18, depending on whether they had children late or early. Childless married people coast through marriage years.
