Creativity comes in all flavors. Someone creates a Jump-to-Conclusion mat and makes a million while someone spends their entire life working on elliptic curves

Creativity comes in all flavors. Someone creates a Jump-to-Conclusion mat and makes a million while someone spends their entire life working on elliptic curves to improve cryptography. Get-rich-quick stories entice even the most brilliant of the minds and we're no different. A story about some kid making $35k/month from a stupid app for iPhone makes people wonder why they even bother learning Clojure or spending hours improving their writing skills. The truth is, you must ask yourself what will make you truly happy - being the developer of a gimmick app that made money or someone who has directly contributed to the world with their efforts. Upon hearing the above, many have said "well, once you have lots of money, say like the reddit guys, you can spend your time doing what you love and help the world." No. The reddit guys WERE doing what they loved and would have done what they're now doing regardless of the money. Sure, having money like Elon Musk helps but then again, it may not. If you hate your career now, get the ball rolling to change it. If you are happy with it, who cares if someone else made millions sharing pictures of cats? I mean do you feel bad that someone in India made $10m selling a special type of plastic sheet to farmers? Or someone in South Africa made millions selling vuvuzelas? If your ultimate goal is to make money, then certainly wonder if you chose the right career. Money laundering or even investment banking might be a better path. Otherwise, realize the money is just a serendipitous by-product of any venture.