Looking at the subject of the thread, I think it always WAS, IS and WILL be worth it!
Guys, lets look at this together:
Most of us are by nature "linear" people. Since we are born, we have clear rules to follow - obedience to authority, hard work and cooperation with others. The "System" promises to us, that, if we take this stepwise journey, happiness will be ours.
We graduate from some university. Get a B.Sc or M.Sc etc... still, we have to admit, we are just one of many. Also, it's not guaranteed that we will get a job we want, most likely we end up somewhere, 9-5pm, in the working environment we can't stand. Yeah, money might be good, but colleagues/boss suck. Or, vice versa... Sounds familiar?
So, you have a secure job, wife/husband, kids, and yet... you are feeling lost and angry at the same "System" about not getting your part of the bargain !! Ask your friends, and most of all, ask yourselves:
"What is the biggest chance you have ever taken?"
You will then begin to realize what "safe" lives we have chosen to lead. The ways people test themselves are foreign to most. Something is lost in our obsessive concern with safety and security - some spirit of adventure. Life is a gamble in which we don't get to deal the cards, but are nevertheless obligated to play them to the best of our ability.
For myself, though a straight line appears to be the shortest distance between two points, I WILL take this "detour", because it is exactly those detours that define us. There are no maps to guide our most important searches; we must rely on hope, chance, intuition and a willingness to be surprised.
For the end:
Once I read from one pilot:
"... I hope that when the airspeed indicator reaches sixty that I can pull back on the yoke and the thing will fly. I've had the physics explained to me a hundred times. Bernoulli was fortuitously correct. But it still seems like a miracle."