Starting a career in something you love is a good way to poison your love and mess with your self image. Starting a career in something you happen to have some talent for is the way to go.
It was a brain drain.
I think my life is healthier now. I still love what I do.
So, there's 1 anecdote in favor of following your love.
Ie judging by your comment your ego seems a bit inflated here to keep things polite, and that in turn distorts literally everything you perceive, about yourself and everything else.
Also, its trivial to reason that rocket rise of over-compensation of basically all IT work in past few decades compared to literally any other engineering science twists this reasoning, but it fall apart quickly in almost every other scenario. (not arguing against high salaries, there are reasons for them, but at the end anything-IT is just another engineering/science branch, stellar people are everywhere but usually a bit more humble).