Attitudes Toward Money

Aside from external economic factors, trying to analyze exactly why I'm poor.  I think I simply don't possess the "greed for money" gene, in the sense that the numbers themselves are my driving force.  I want to enjoy what I DO for a living (which seems to be pictures and words that, in turn, generate numbers), but, of course, I want the numbers, the assets, to be high enough to conquer the debts and bills, the liabilities of life.  Question is:  What do I want to DO to ACHIEVE the numbers?  Where do I wish to place my mental and emotional energy every waking moment of the day?  I know that I enjoy looking through a camera lense at people and things...OK, so where do I go to make the maximum amount of money doing that?  L.A. and the movie business seems the only logical choice.  The movie business is, of course, very sporadic, shaky and highly speculative, and I don't want to starve to death.  So I need a part-time business to create a residual stream of income that is more than high enough to pay the bills, then, when that business mostly runs itself (which never seems to happen; you still need to be there to manage it), focus on my artistic endeavors, knowing that this business pays the bills, and anything my artistic endeavors generates is gravy, surplus, bonus, extra.  Sooner or later, it ALL starts to feel like hard work, purely technical, shuffling, a numbers game, and then the money itself becomes the driving force, to the chagrin of passion.  This is kind of where I'm at.  My passion feels dead, and it's become all about generating maximum reward for least work.  I want to feel passionate about something again.  I suppose, never having had six figures to play with, that kind of number on a balance sheet WOULD excite me.  I'd be like "Oohh--cool!  Now I can do this and this and this...this much goes into retirement, this much pays off debt, this much fixes up the house, this much pays for a trip to Europe or the Aztec pyramids."  Life's quandry:  We know where our talents and passion reside, but can't fly with it because it doesn't generate enough dinero to pay the bills; therefore we settle into some position or business that pays the bills but that we find a stressful nuissance that keeps us from doing what we really want to do with our lives.  I suppose I need to force myself to be passionate about whatever I have to do to generate dinero.  Numbers on a balance sheet just bores the shit out of me.  Strange quandry...maybe I've just come to the end of myself, in which case I should be focusing on helping OTHERS, which in turn, generates dinero.  Caring and karma, a philanthropic spirit, go a long way to boosting one's self-worth, emotionally and financially.  OK...answered my own question.  Numbers don't interest me; PEOPLE do...well, people who are not obsessed with numbers, that is.