I finished building the lighthouse at the end of eighth grade, and over the next year spent much of my free time reading about woodworking, watching how-to shows, and surfing instructional websites. I had big dreams about what I wanted to make, but no way to realize them. 
My tools were still limited to the jigsaw and drill and a few basic, low-quality hand tools. I read many a time that the router (think of a drill that can cut horizontally as well as vertically) is one of the most versatile woodworking tools, as it can be used to cut grooves, shape recesses, and form joinery. It can also be used to straighten out a cut when there is no access to a tool better suited to the job. That’s primarily why I wanted a router – it’s impossible to cut straight, clean lines with a jigsaw, which really limited me. 
I asked my granddad for advice about my purchase. He told me that everyone he knew who owned a router also did not have all ten fingers. His warning scared me briefly, but I was desperate to build something and I was confident in my respect for the tool, which is critical to staying safe.
So I bought myself the router and a cheap set of bits, and my parents banished me to the garage from my normal spot in the furnace room due to the dust and noise it created. 
I got to work on a project right away: a Shaker-style stool I saw in Fine Woodworking Magazine. It was a simple design, published in the magazine as an exercise in building furniture entirely by hand. Lacking the skill, though, and wanting to try out my router, I made it by machine. I chose a piece of pine with beautiful color and straight grain for the top and legs and used thick chunks of walnut for the corner braces. I distinctly remember clamping a piece of plywood to two sawhorses in the garage to make a work surface for cutting the grooves and through-mortises in the top. 
The feeling was immensely satisfying, not only because of power I could feel in my hands as I cut wood with ease, but because I had purchased the tool with money I had earned by mowing lawns. It was the first tool to be indisputably mine. Over the course of a few weeks, I carried the stool to completion. I was disappointed somewhat in the fit and finish. I couldn’t get the through mortises quite flush with the top, and the top itself was a bit pockmarked from my first experience with a hand plane. 
Still, the primary feeling I had upon finishing it was pride. It held my weight, after all. For the first time I had built something truly useful with my own tools, and it was a copy of a piece worthy of being published in Fine Woodworking! Plus, it was good practice for future projects and gave me a confidence boost to carry them out.
I think one thing our passions share in common is the respect for the tools that we give it. Cars, like woodworking tools, at the end of the day can kill you if you do stupid things with them or don’t use them with the proper safety precautions. But I also think that pride in knowing we used something somewhat dangerous safely makes our work feel validated. While you have called your stool not perfect, it is leagues and bounds better than anything I could have built, and looks quite good. I look forward to seeing what you build next.
I remember my dad telling me stories like that about what he learned from his father — the offhand comments like what your granddad said about people with routers no longer having ten fingers. I agree with Haseeb that a lot of pride comes from controlling dangerous tools, as well of course as buying them yourself and using them to make your own creations.