What is self-evident, to me at least, is that you'll never attain a level of personal satisfaction or lasting meaningful accomplishment, from monitoring a transport category aircraft on autopilot, the way you can by handflying a Pitts or Edge/Extra on a lazy saturday afternoon on your own dime and time, or island hopping in the Caribbean with a slow seaplane or 3 mile a minute twin-engine cruiser, again on your own time. Or taking a Viper or equivalent military jet and doing things less than .01% of the world's population will ever dream about being capable of doing. These things are "purisms" in aviation; they seldom make good reasons to do something for a living when taken as singularities of motivation.
When I was single and young I was motivated by these singularities. Now that I have a son, I'd readily cut my hands off to ensure he fulfills his potential in life before I'd set foot back into a paid airplane gig at the expense of his health, happiness and welfare. That diametric shift in motivation cannot be understood until you're physically in that life position, which is why I've never taken too much stock in giving young people advice. Everybody always think they know everything at 21, because 21 yos are fundamentally incapable of projecting/extrapolating how they'd feel at 45, with imperfect life circumstances no less. Those that do, literally bend the spoon of fate and get a jump on their peers, to borrow an analogy from the Matrix. They also tend to capitalize economically on such rare exercise of foresight.
Look, if I could make WB FO pay and be home as much as a senior one can be, by proverbially selling life insurance or defrauding pensioners via Wall street (assuming I could stomach the ethical forbearance) , I'd be the first one to get on my house-slave monkey suit and peddle that desk jockey crap while whistling Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" under my breath. Because I can't or won't, I entertain this vocation instead. But that whole mantra of "if you don't love it, it's not for you" is garbage. Nobody "loves" falling asleep on top of an FMS doing yet another RNAV arrival into DFW on yet another Saturday and Sunday away from your family. You do it because you can't make six figures/afford your family's lifestyle any other way, and you're able to work out some combination of QOL that is better than making less money while staying home every night, that otherwise doesn't make you want hang yourself while on layover day 2 of a 4-day. The others simply don't need a primary source of income. The rest are just lying.
My 50 centavos anyways.