People inevitably develop unreasonable fantasies of what life could be in a field / relationship / situation far from their own. I feel you're being a bit unnec

People inevitably develop unreasonable fantasies of what life could be in a field / relationship / situation far from their own. I feel you're being a bit unnecessarily cynical about how bad this kind of daydreaming is. Yes, if you were an actual plumber who spent half a day tugging diapers out of a 2 inch pipe, and some dumbass hipster you run into later tells you how glamorous your job is, that might be a bit annoying. But people in all sorts of fields experience that annoyance to some degree. Anecdotally, I have two friends I went to college with who daydreamed about quitting their desk jobs and working a trade. One of them, I worked with on construction crews during school breaks, and he'd talk about how much he preferred that to college. He ended up in an office job anyway. The other guy didn't have that trade experience, he just felt he'd like it better. He did some white collar work after graduation, hated it. Later he went on to work in a couple trades until finding one that fit; he went through a very extensive licensing process, and now makes good money and spends very little time behind a desk. And he's very happy with that -- so it does work out for some people.