I am so tired of people parroting "Do what you love."
Real life isn't a Disney movie. Doing what I love, I would be lucky to make $10k a year.
You know what else I love beside that? Making enough money to eat.
You know what I REALLY like, knowing that I'm making enough money now to GUARANTEE my dreams will come true.
Not scaping pennies together as a starting artist, crossing my fingers, and hoping that one day I get my break. No, I did that for 10 years. You know what I noticed? No one ever gets a break.
Unfortunately, an increasing number of people don't feel this way. Their solution is to increase their salary (and benefits) at the ballot box.
I do something I hate enough to walk in with a sword and fight it every day.
The first one (magician) went as you stated, I ended up hating it, or atleast hating it as a job. It paid pretty well, but performing because I had to instead of wanted to made a big difference.
On the other hand though, I also took my hobby of hacking stuff into the my current career doing application security consulting and vuln research. Also pays quite well and I enjoy my job quite a bit, possibly even more than doing it as a hobby.
So with a sample size of me, that's 50/50 odds on finding something you love working out as a job you love. Not great, but imo not reason to atleast take a shot if your passion also happens to pay well, and is feasible.
People keep repeating that advice, but finding something you love doing just for the work might be an endless chase, not unlike the chase after success and money.
Some of us actually feel that it is easier to chase money than it is to find work you really love.