Its fully possible, but its also statistically improbable for enough number of people to be doing that, and even more improbable for it being a common aspiration in the society. The aspirations and standards of the society generally follow the lines of money and a hip/desirable status at any given time according to the dominant fad.
More than that. Society, especially parents, relatives and peer groups keep pressure on the individuals to follow the 'desirable' trends.
> "but it's quite likely a random person is a trend follower anyway"
Yes. That's quite likely. Because the general sample set available to the public for making comparisons, generally end up people who have followed the trends. Be it among the relatives, be it from the sample set at Linked in. You will scarcely find people saying 'I became a poet and Im happy' or "I followed my dream of becoming an oil rig worker instead of a lawyer". The public, vocal feedback will tend to follow the society's requirements.
You're more likely to find a human interested in learning to play the guitar than staring intently at a squirrel out the window for hours (although a a cat might be interested in that).
They do. But these rarely end up being the jobs that the society respects and recommends. Things may change in near future with new ways of working and making a living. But currently, what you really want to do and what society things to be 'good' will likely not overlap.
Because the society's standards are capricious, and they change almost every decade. They can even suddenly change in a single year. What is 'the place to be' a yesterday could be a place that people don't want to be tomorrow. What's 'cool' yesterday can be 'lame' tomorrow. If one builds his or her life on the society's changing perspective, he or she can easily end up unhappy in a decade or two, being in a place and situation which does not merit the effor that went into it to get it and keep it.
The ideal is going in the direction which YOU want to go. Where YOU want to be. That's where all those 'inner drive' talk comes from. And they are right - in 10-20 years, all the people who had shaped the standards of the current society as adults or parents will be gone. The standards and perspectives will change. It happens every ~20 years. And when that happens, its better to have that 20 years lived by your own standards and drives than the ever-shifting societal standards.