(Didn't really know who exactly to reply to, so guess I'll comment to the post!)

I understand that many are skeptical about people like Steve. Though I can't help but feel that he is (or at least was, in his earlier articles) genuinely interested in helping people by sharing his knowledge. I'm quite gullible though, so I could be completely wrong too. Haven't read much other self-help stuff, but I've always felt that Steve provided me with tools so I can look for answers myself, instead of reaching out to him for answers. Maybe that also depends on what exactly you read from him though.

His intentions aside, he has been a real eye-opener for me. I'm still pretty young and don't have much life experience besides, well, school and studying. He has sort of woke me up and made me realize that there is so much more to life than studying and working, that you are the one responsible for what your life looks like and how you live it, and that you really do have the power to get what you want from life. Whereas before I would feel rather grim and unmotivated thinking of what I'd do with my life. Of course, other things like TED also contributed to this turnaround, but Steve's site was the first time in my life that I'd been really rocked out of my daily routine for quite some time to reflect deeply about life and what I wanted from it.

I do agree that he has a pretty one-sided view here. Seems like I kinda unknowingly jumped his wagon on this one. He throws any kind of job into the "this is absolutely bad and undesirable" pile while many jobs can also be very fulfilling, satisfying, and a source of wonderful experiences, like doing research as mk mentioned. You just need to find that job which does these things for you.

Maybe what I was trying to say with "not wanting a normal job" was that I don't want to live my life working a job that doesn't satisfy me on a personal level and restricts me from doing the things in life I'd love to do. Or any job that bores me. So many people fall into this trap and work at jobs that demotivate them, stress them out and make them unhappy.