I think there's some kind of implicit sentiment that the happiness from doing something you enjoy and getting paid are additive when you do something you enjoy.

I think there's some kind of implicit sentiment that the happiness from doing something you enjoy and getting paid are additive when you do something you enjoy. I'm not sure that's true. I love computers, UNIX/Linux, scalable architectures, yadda yadda yadda. I work in the field, and am reasonably well compensated, but I've always said "I'd keep doing computers even if I was the one paying." Doing something you're passionate about for someone else (whether your customer is a manager, or you're self employed and your customer is the one paying) isn't inherently pleasurable if the customer's goals aren't perfectly aligned with yours -- in fact it can be deeply saddening to know there's a better way to accomplish something, if only some business reality (cost, technical constraint) wasn't in the way. For me, the big win working in my favorite field is that the job is easy -- I have a great pool of contacts, I've spent over 80% of my entire life immersed in the problems and solutions of this field. That said, I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy computing a lot more again if I went back to bagging groceries -- 100% of the computing I'd do would be computing for pleasure, no more chores or building stuff for people that have needs that are different than mine.