I acknowledge your clarification and I agree with what YOU have said, but let me rant a little against the startup mentality that is prevalent here on HN. The general attitude seems to be that you're wasting your one chance at living unless you haven't accomplished something bigger than yourself and have left a legacy. It is a rousing sentiment, but yet, at the end of the day, I can't help but be sobered by the poem Ozymandius. Yes, you've left a legacy, but only for one, maybe two, generations before that too is forgotten:

  My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
  Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

Speaking of poems, poets would tell you that you've wasted your life unless you've loved; loved so deeply that you die a little when it is lost. So which is it? Legacy? Success? Love? Family?

In the end, I think you've nailed it with your last sentence: living your passions. If your passion is, literally, passion, then love. Make love your life. If your passion is external admiration, then succeed. (Please don't become a doctor or lawyer if your goal is admiration. Only do so if your passion is helping the sick or defending justice.) But to your point, at the end of your life, make sure you don't have a 100" flat-panel TV and a mountain of regrets.