When I was doing Cargo on the 742F, I could have written an inspirational post every day. Coming up to 3 years on the 744 and I'm now looking to get back into Cargo and would take a 20K decrease in pay to do so.
Point I'm making is that the first bit of luck is getting an interview. Second bit of luck is getting the job. But I tell you, after one year, the most important bit of luck is whether you enjoy the job - not the flying (the novelty lasts a few years) but the whole T&C element.
You may think that any flying job is great but if you are not enjoying the airline/company, you will have the same feeling as when you did when you sat opposite a PC wishing for a better life.
When I was in cargo, the schedules were horrendous due to time zones of weird and wonderful places we flew to, pay on the 742F was pale in comparison to our airline colleagues and we slept in B&Bs (providing the paperwork actually got through to the country in question!)
But I loved every single minute of it! Because my employer's T&C were excellent and you actually felt like 'one of the family' rather than a costly overhead. And this cascaded down to the down-to-earth pilots I flew with.
I honestly hope that all of you guys who are about to/have paid 30K for the likes of FYR enjoy the job and eventually get the T&Cs you deserve.
Because if not, those glorious pictures soon get boring.