OK, as a fellow INTP, I now have to weigh in. The problem is very likely not the job itself, it is the people doing the job. I have had that square-peg-round-hole feeling many times, until I found this place. Why? The business world is designed around S/Js, so I always felt different and couldn't communicate effectively, and it felt really stupid to be criticized for stapling the TPS reports horizontally instead of vertically, because who really gives a shit, you know? But it turns out this place is very heavily NTPs (seriously, we're like 2% of all lawyers, but the firm was like 50%). Suddenly I would say something and the person I was talking to would *get* me; they didn't have a lot of procedures or policies, it was more "be a professional and do your job" -- basically, the things that seemed were important to me were important to them, and the ones that seemed not worth bothering about to me also didn't really matter to them. And the magic was that that helped me perform better -- it's amazing what being appreciated, recognized as competent, and judged fairly does for your morale and desire to go back to work the next day!
So my advice would be to stop worrying so much about the specific career path and just keep looking until you find an environment you fit in. Forget "follow your passion" -- I'm 51 and still haven't found mine. And I guarantee you that if you focus on fun things, there will be a gazillion other people vying for the same spot, because who doesn't want to be paid for having fun? And the basic rules of supply and demand say that this will drive salaries down in those fields. So if you want to make a good salary, focus on what you are good at and enjoy/don't mind doing that other people either can't do or just flat-out hate. I mean, fortunes have been made collecting garbage. Think in terms of your skills -- of what you can do and don't mind that others can't or won't -- and then look for opportunities in the business world that fit what you have to offer, where you can fill an underserved, lucrative niche.
Example/illustration: I love writing and wanted to be an author but didn't want to starve/scrape by. I also really love puzzles -- there's nothing like that satisfying mental "click" when the last piece falls into place. Turns out, all of that makes for a pretty decent regulatory lawyer -- the regulatory work is something others find either horrendously dull or too complex to follow, but when the last piece slips into place and it all makes sense, I get that same feeling as finishing a puzzle. And it turns out writing briefs is pretty awesome [insert joke about "fiction" here]; and when the argument all fits together like a puzzle, it's a two-fer. That's what I mean by "skills" -- not the things you do to turn your brain off, but the things you do that turn your brain on, that get you engaged and excited; and not even the "stuff" itself (hobbies/sports), but the specific skill that you deploy when you are doing that engaging thing.
Now the bad news: it gets way better as you get more experience and more senior. Especially for big-picture people, there's nothing like being responsible for the strategy, with peons to implement the boring stuff. :-) But unfortunately, there's no way to avoid the slog of the peon years to get to that level. So, again, the key is to find a place with enough people who get you, and work that isn't soul-deadening, that you can throw yourself into it, get positive reinforcement, and build the experience that allows you to get to the really fun stuff.
