I sometimes feel like I go all the way around. I find a fix for a problem that says: just copy and paste this. I then spend 3 hours or more reading and trying to understand the snippet, or do it directly. Then I realise the fix is to just copy and paste that original snippet.
I guess at least I now understand why everyone just does that for that problem.
After reading (or skimming) many books on *nix, I encountered one that was way over my head. I was lost and gave up after ~25 pages. A few years later, I found myself reading it casually because I no longer needed to type things out to verify how they worked. It was an awesome feeling.