ON: Work is depressing, is this what life is?

I'm skeptical about the "do what you love and money will follow" thing, for many. Perhaps most.

Most artists starve and sell their mediocre work at Starbucks or other galleries, and work retail and other jobs they don't like. I respect their passion, "but..."

I believe it is a function of dumb luck, innate talent, and timing that can determine a person's success in the Information Age. Plenty are out of luck today who would have prospered only fifty years ago. And fifty years ago, I'd not have prospered as much.

Looking in the mirror, I always had somewhat of a passion for operating systems and why Gates and Paul Allen built MS DOS how they did, back to version 5.0. I was determined to find out, and taught myself Visual Basic. That lead to VB Script, which is simple coding, and the guts of Windows 3.1 16 bit and the new 32 bit operating systems and how they communicated with networks. Which lead to work that was lucrative at the time.

Insatiable curiosity, and moderate (though not extreme) talent has lead me to top-3% success over a 25 year arc in IT, 20 years actually in the business, from networking expertise to software coding in test to management to leadership. Not 1% success, like Gates and Allen, though Im' not complaining: we play the cards we are dealt, and I've risen to my own level of incompetence. Further, actually, by the numbers (IQ, innate math abilities or lack-of, ability to communicate and articulate abstract concepts in layman's terms).

My point is it was dumb luck I had innate talent for IT, networking, coding, etc. plus ambition and talent to turn it into a career left-turn after classical training as a scientist. And to see years, decades later that what I do is absolutely on-fire as a career arc. They cannot find enough strong (wo)men to do my work, it is a total Buyer's market past few years and I don't see that changing anytime soon, per USBLS.gov, CIO, Forbes, and other forward-thinkers.

I think it is luck the nerds rule now, at this juncture in history when raw ability to handle extraordinarily complex machinery of the modern age (driven by IT, soon AI) holds the keys to economic prosperity. A hundred years ago the financiers and engineers ruled, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Roosevelt and other Long Island "Old Money," and I'd have still done OK though not quite as well in the Industrial vs. Information Age. Back then, your family name mattered quite a bit, and mine was mud. That would have been a barrier to Ivy League entry, compare/contrast to the grit and talent that got me in back in the 'Naughts. That, too, was luck and timing of when I was born!

If your passion is manufacturing and a good day's hard work at a laborious task, you're in very deep trouble now and in the future. Ditto driving or other task that can be automated away, or will be very shortly.

Talk about grateful: I a nerd's nerd at a time when polished, highly communicative and social yet technical nerds who look good in thousand dollar suits (if I do say so) are the way of the future.