You mentioned "living the dream." We say that to each other sarcastically a lot. "Hey, how's it going?" "Living the dream!" Any glamor this job once had gets sucked out pretty fast.
To be brutally honest, the more this supposed pilot shortage develops, the better off professional pilots are. Some pilot groups need it to develop a little more for their companies to run into a serious enough staffing shortage that management will improve pay rates - a few regional groups are still at food stamp wages. Fortunately most pilot groups have improved beyond that, but what I'm getting at is this: the last thing we need are older second career types coming in to "play" airline pilot and check it off their bucket lists. There's actually a developing stigma for that sort of pilot.
So, it's one thing if you seriously want to dedicate the last decade of your career to doing this job and advancing the profession, but if you just want the bragging rights and to "live the dream" while subsisting off your savings as regional management stalls on pay increases because you're happy to do the job for peanuts, well... that's why there's some backlash to your post.