You Should Not "Follow Your Dreams" as a Career

I was a 90's kid and grew up with the whole "follow your dreams" and "your work should be your passion" stuff drilled into my head all through school. Reflecting on my high school class, for example, here's the harsh reality 20+ years later: there were a lot of smart, talented, and hard-working people in my class, but I don't think a single person had their "dreams" work out for them long-term in a professional sense.

There are many happy and successful people from my graduating class who have done interesting things and accomplished a lot, but mostly in very boring areas that nobody "dreams" about while entering their 20's. In fact, the people - even the genuinely talented ones - who most insisted on trying to make a serious, long-term living in their "dreams" (e.g. acting, music, art, writing, photography, athletics, modelling, sports media, specialty teaching, etc.) often struggled tremendously, sometimes had mild and temporary success (like a few briefly pro athletes from my class, a minor acting gig here or there, a published but not bestselling book, etc.), but generally struggled personally and professionally until they found stability in something more traditional, sometimes even in a professional field adjacent to their dreams.

The people who did really well and seem happier and more settled are the ones who had some talent and... here's the crucial part... figured out where their talents gave them an unfair advantage in areas tremendously valued and highly compensated by large segments of society (i.e. boring traditional professions). Today, those traditionally successful people do a lot more of what they want to do compared to the people who spent their 20's and 30's trying to follow an well-meaning but barely compensated or 1% of 1% success-rate passion.

Yes there are many exceptions to this guidance, especially for the top 1% of the top 1% talent pool. There have been a small handful of people over decades of graduates who have achieved dreams. (For example, there was an NBA player from a class ahead of mine, but it was pretty obvious for years that he was a serious contender, and nobody else since then has managed to play beyond lower college levels.) But my unpopular opinion for general advice is that unless major decisions makers are already recruiting you, you should probably not "follow your dreams" unless the thing you dream of doing has many realistic opportunities and is valued by a large portion of society; it's better to enjoy your dreams as a passion hobby and do something that makes enough money to support your hobbies for fun, or maybe a little side income.