Different airline, but flying international at FedEx changed my life and my career goals.
When I got hired, our chief pilot said something along the lines of "when you'd rather be at work than at home, then we have a problem..."
After about a year of flying around the globe--one leg to long layovers in Germany, France, and Brazil, I caught myself on a farm I had purchased cleaning fences asking "*** am I doing here? I could making north of a $1000 a day and exploring Paris, or I can work on this ##$^ fence..." Every time I went on a trip, I was eating or drinking in cool places, exploring, and getting paid. At home--I was fixing whatever was broken, going to Home Depot, etc. I sort of had an epiphany and ever since then have spent more time and money on travel and having fun instead of buying stuff and fixing things. Prior to doing the international, I "went to work" to make money to get the stuff I wanted on my days off. Once I started up on the international flying, I found myself "going on trips..." and enjoying my road time as much or more than my time off.
What about family? My CP's comments were directed at not screwing up your home life. I was making enough that I started dragging my wife and/or daughters along on some of the trips. About once a month or every couple months I had someone with me on west coast layovers, or Hawaii, Anchorage, or other places. Work became fun not just for me, but for the family...
All that led to me taking an overseas assignment at FDX. I enjoyed the travel so much, and the family did also, so when we had a chance to "live" on a layover we decided to give it a try.
What's the point of this rambling post? Its nice to have a job that let's you grow or change as the chapters of your life unfold. What is very important to you when you have young kids at homes changes when they get into junior high and high school. When they leave the nest, your goals change again. For those so inclined, this job can offer much more than just getting weekends off or having 17 days off in a month, but can instead create opportunities to travel anywhere or live anywhere you want. Not many folks can commute from Kona or Big Sky Montana to work, but airline pilots can. In addition to (sometimes) being fun and interesting, International trips with longer legs create a situation where you may get more days off and more days off in a row, allowing you to move anywhere you choose. If you decide that you prefer domestic and short trips, that's fine--but what if things change in your life down the road? Having options is great.