>Empathize with what?

Empathize with someone having the same degree of passion towards what they do at work and what they do outside of work.

>Replace all of this job-passion with the fantasy of winning enough millions in the lottery to retire and yeah, there you go. People already fantasize about that.

This is the exact opposite sentiment. People desire endless amount of free time (e.g. retirement) specifically because it lets them spend all of their time pursuing passions that no employer is willing to pay for. Their job is not one of those passions, and it is hard for them to imagine a world in which that could possibly be the case.

While most of my passions would not make for a very lucrative career, one of my passions happens to be solving scientific computing problems I find cool, and I have been very lucky that several employers have been willing to pay good sums of money for me to pursue that passion.

> While most of my passions would not make for a very lucrative career, one of my passions happens to be solving scientific computing problems I find cool, and I have been very lucky that several employers have been willing to pay good sums of money for me to pursue that passion.

You’re truly the lucky one in that equation.

[dead]