On the "follow your passion" advice... There are a number of occupations that can lead to success. Many of those occupations require a certain amount of skill

On the "follow your passion" advice... There are a number of occupations that can lead to success. Many of those occupations require a certain amount of skill to pull off. And if you are passionate about a given skill, you stand a better chance than average of acquiring a high level of proficiency in said skill (at least in most cases). Therefore, the advice to "follow your passion" is to find the occupation that you are most comfortable with, and not pursue a job that you hate just because it pays well. This even works for some of the "follow your passion" cliches, such as being an artist or musician. In those cases, you may not make it rich on stage, but you could do well in advertising (which requires artistic and/or musical talent). But you also have to refine some secondary skills, such as psychology (so you know the techniques to combine with your art that will be successful in getting people to buy product).