The only thing that's hard to reconcile for me is advice to "work on something important". That's like asking someone to just get better from depression. If we

The only thing that's hard to reconcile for me is advice to "work on something important". That's like asking someone to just get better from depression. If we can all truly agree on what's important and what's not that's half the problem solved right there. Other issue is that if a problem is important then a lot of folks are already on it. Is it worth everyone's time for one more person to come and compete for the same goal? This only makes sense if you know that you can bring a new perspective to that topic (which unfortunately every scientist believes they do).