My advice for those who love to fly and think shelling out thousands will make them happy is to save it, get a well paid job elsewhere and fly for fun. Garmin have ensured that private fliers can occupy much the same territory as commercial pilots these days so cut out the middleman hassles a commercial pilot is presented with (economic versus safety) and scratch the itch that way.
"Pilot" does not mean the same as it did just ten years ago. The percieved role is much different from the reality. Those who say it's amazing and wonderful are usually new or inexeperienced or just hopelessly delusional... or maybe just easily satisified? Quite frankly, looking at it with older and slightly more experienced eyes I'd say it must be hard to find the same pleasure from staring at an EADI for 6 hours a day after 40 years. Those who I know in that position are a good testiment to that assumption.
My hopes and aspirations have altered a fair bit in the last ten years of flying - but I guess you can never properly explain this to an eager wannabe, much less have them take it on board.
Kids don't listen, that's just life.
Well as a new PPL holder, I have realized over the past few months that
I just can't afford NOT to become a career pilot.
I will never, ever, be in a position to satisfy my appetite for the air privately with my salary from my current engineering job.