Everybody is full of dumb advice about being a scientist. Invariably the advice is by post docs who have seen the bullcrap that the research world is actually. However, they are in the game, and too invested in it to quit. They then try to find some reason to make it all sound worthwhile, and often their advice sounds like a load of utter crap.
Many years ago, I started loving science because of how it opened my mind. I loved patterns and loved the abstraction of physics, and its predictive power. In India, just being a scientist seemed to be a big enough thing to do, because the world we live is fraught with superstition and all sorts of preconceived notions and myths that people mistook for the truth. The mental darkness that people lived in is astounding, so it seemed like a big feat just to want to be a scientist. And since I am a woman, it seemed more pertitnent that I should just exist as a a rational and strong presence and that would be enough to justify my existence.
After a while though, everybody gets drawn into the great machine that has its throbbing heart in the united states of aggressive mediocrity. Academia. One starts a PhD, invests heart and soul to go after a passion, comes out with a fried brain, broken heart and no career prospects.