I started on my own because it became too expensive to keep buying it
Little did I know it would take quite a bit of first hand experience as well as allocating time to real studying if I wanted to grow anything worth smoking. Even after two seasons I wouldn't tell someone I can grow "good" weed. I feel like it would take at least 5-10 seasons before you really had a handle on your technique, 15-20 before you perfected it, so we're talking a substantial amount of time, 5-10 years if you're on the ball with the harvest. Makes me appreciate the quality weed I'm able to buy on a regular basis.
It's still fun and a huge part of the process of educating yourself, and I can only imagine it gets better with time.
Eventually, I want to be able to dedicate a small to medium sized "lab" to growing cannabis full time, a station to clone, to veg, to flower, hydro, soil, vertical, FIM, SOG, everything. There's so much to try and test, I'd just love to have a facility to be able to do it and perfect it and that's half the fun alone, trial and error. Not to mention all the different methods of consuming it, oil, wax, dried/cured, hash, blunt, bong, spliff, joint, edible... endless!
Hopefully I'll get the chance to mentor someone else someday, I feel like that would be a huge privilege and a lot of fun