Yeah I don't get it either. Spend a hundred grand getting all the quals, fly for dodgy/shonky operators for years while gaining precious hours and getting paid peanuts, finally worm your way into a regional and get treated like doggy doo for a few years, get your command... now you are probably down half a million bucks over your mates who all became accountants... finally achieve the holy grail and start serving your serious airline time as a cruise F/0 or something while still being paid, well not peanuts, more like salted almonds.
About now you realise that quality of life and lifestyle are way more important than monitoring a computer for 13 hours... now all you want is an easy roster and less flying... eventually you would kill for a few weeks at home playing with the kids, who now don't recognise their father anyway... and now you couldn't care less if you never saw an aircraft ever again, if you could only stop feeling exhausted all the time and permanently jet-lagged...
May not be everybody's experience, however enough of my ex-colleagues found it to be so for them, which is why I never went long haul. Just not worth it IMHO... although the money can be good at the top of the tree...
And now you realise that flying for nothing, in order to get something that you end up not wanting anyway, isn't such a bargain!