> I should think about what I am good at and what makes me happy at least 80% of the time.

Even if you had a "job" following your dream, it is quite unlikely to make you happy 80% of the time. If you've found something to do that makes you happy 80% of the time, _that_ is your dream.

> in grad school I saw how applying for grants is a constant source of worry for many professors. I realized I did not want to be responsible for the salaries of my hypothetical lab members.

If that's all you needed to worry about being a Professor of Marine Biology, then your life would indeed be dreamy. Other pursuits = other things to worry about and other hassles, often much more worries than the bureaucracy of leading a research group.

Being a grown-up sucks that way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPi2s1K_pgU

There's another problem with research positions though: There aren't any. I mean, there are a few, but a very small few with tenure, and in the non-tenure-track ones you often have to research stuff you don't care much about. Academia is massively underfunded IMHO.

> My writing got noticed, eventually by people at my institution, and I was given opportunities to write press releases and stories for the university's news bureau.

That seems like a pretty bad job. Especially since one keeps being faced by what one's former colleagues have managed to do, with one only getting to report on it. IMHO anyway.

> After 3 years of writing, I was offered a position as a science writer.

Now that's much nicer, but - scientific writing is a small niche. I believe a lot of graduate researchers share most/all of your sentiments. I would not suggest they aim for that kind of position. Teaching, which was mentioned in the article, is relevant. But that is again quite likely to make you happy less of the time than research.

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Now let's be a little more general...

We live in a Capitalist and hierarchical society, where resources are rarely made available to you without large amounts of money, which the vast majority of people don't have. To follow most (?) non-trivial dreams, much effort by people with different skills is necessary. You would need to locate and convince such people to help you. Again, this is facilitated by being super rich, which you aren't. You could seek funding, but then you're essentially selling your dream to a bunch of investors.

Regardless of social structures, humans' overall time and resources are insufficient to realize everyone's life dream. So even under ideal conditions you would have to compromise for a joint-dream of some sort.

But - this is not necessarily a bad thing. There is absolutely no reason why your childhood life-dream would be the same as your teenage life-dream, or the same as your university life-dream etc: Our dreams and interests change with experience. So it is quite possible that if you go do something new which expands your horizons, you'll develop different dreams, or a different take on your dream. If that process also involves interacting with others - a group of friends, a community, maybe that can help the lot of you agree on some common dream, and then pool your abilities and resources and pursue it together.