on the question about turning something that you love into a job. I think it has the most to do with a bit more context. is that your plan to do it for a job (went and got a degree specifically to do it as a job), or is it just something that you enjoy, and becomes your job?
so for example I am going to use myself and a couple people I knew who wanted to be game programmers/developers (this was before these specialized degrees were everywhere) well the thing that most people right out of a Computer Science degree that want to be game devs/programers do is game testing, and we all ended up in the same testing group several times, but when you hear about game testing, and they say that they do 8hour days the typical thought is "you get paid to play games for 8hours a day. that sounds so awesome" to which I usually want to just start screaming at them until they go away (and not the ranting scream because that never worked, but just the incoherent noise scream) because it is not awesome, and in many cases you will come to hate either specific genres, to games in general. because you are not only playing games for 8hours a day you are playing the same game for 8hours a day, and with a high likelihood the same (many times 10 minute section) part for upwards of 2-3hours, and your not playing it for the fun of it you are playing it to find flaws, and then give details on everything that happened that made that flaw evident. then you are doing this for 2-3 sometimes 6 months on the same game. this is why I will never play a sports game again because I had to spend 5 months with a MF football game making sure that not only every play worked, but also making sure different combinations of plays worked with each possible opposition team for each player selectable team in the game.
so to put this experience into understanding take one of those games that you will say the words "this should never had been released" then take that game and play 30 minute sections (particularly the ones that are broken) and then write down what you did that made the game break (including every button that you pushed), and then repeat it if possible do this for about an hour, and you will start to understand what I am talking about here. though once I got to actually making the games I remembered why I loved it so much. I will still never play another sports game.
