Originally Posted by
AYLflyer
There's a difference between comparing your income to the average household and keeping perspective on life around you.
I want to be the highest paid professional I can be, but that doesn't mean I can't have a good perspective on my life/career compared to the average citizen. The whole "We're not the average citizen" line is bull****. You're one medical bust away from just being an 'average citizen'.
So many guys in this profession are disconnected from reality when it comes to pay/benefits. I watch all my friends who aren't in avitaion work their butts off to maybe someday clear $60-$80k/yr and get 3-4% retirement contributions from their companies if they're lucky.
Perspective. You can be grateful for what you have and what you earn while not selling yourself short. We can still fight hard for what we deserve to be paid as a professional aviator and still have some humility in knowing that the very people we haul back and forth may work 2,3,4,5x harder than us and will and never see the earnings potential we see as pro pilots.
I agree completely. Some pilots have a massive chip on their shoulder/inferiority complex. I earn more than my wife does, and she is a doctor. Does that mean that I'm better trained, or somehow more important? No. It's just a paycheck. But to the guy who says that doctors don't compare themselves to the average citizen, sure they do. Absolutely, you must if you want to keep perspective about life.
But people on here don't want perspective. They want to inflate their egos, and feel "special."