As I got older I have a very different take on pg's essays than when I was younger. When I was younger these essays motivated me, as I felt that these essays are written for me. PG seemingly addresses many of his essays to 'very ambitious', 'extremely smart', 'independent thinking' people, and writes about topics to achieve extreme success. When I was younger I believed I am such a person. Now I know that I am smarter than average, has a little bit more ambition than average, but I am probably not THAT special. And it is OK. I can be, and am relatively successful. Without pg's grandious motivational writings.
Nowadays I am not motivated by pg's essays as I am much much more conscious about myself and my motivations. When reading his essays I am much more interested in the rhetoric he uses to convince young people. I became an outsider, a third-party observer when it comes to his essays.
One interesting thing I noticed at the start of the essay is that he starts with a descriptive tone: at the first sentence he does not assume that I, as a reader want to do 'great work'. "to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field." But then suddenly he writes this: "The following recipe assumes you're very ambitious." Now suddenly he makes the reader of the essay and the one he gives advice to equivalent.
Ok, my personal opinion on pg's advice: For fairly ambitious people, who has some life experience these essays are fairly trivial. Absolutely not actionable. Most of us will not do 'great work'. Most of his readers will do 'good enough' work, even slightly above-average work. My advice would be that do what fulfills you. Don't aim for great work, aim for good work. If you are lucky your work can even become great. But you can still be happy if it is just good. Also don't sacrifice yourself too much chasing overly ambitious ideas while you are poor. Try to find joy in work that brings you closer to financial independence with much greater chance than pg's romanticized 'great work'.