Not so much that programming has given me, but constantly having to come up with analogies to explain highly technical concepts to my non-technical co-workers has invaded my life.

"See, your username and password are like a combination lock, where the Kerberos ticket is a key. When you authenticate to the portal, you hand the key to the website, which validates it, and lets you in... but the key is actually in your browser, so it does that all transparently."