Good post luke. Things that need to be said.
To all those enthusiastic wannabes just starting on the road to being a pilot: listen to those who are already down that road. There are things that you can learn from us to avoid the pitfalls that some of us made and increase your chances of success.
Just in the same way that many of us at the licence but no job phase (where I am) are listening hard to those in the airlines, to find out just how they got there, and what we should do to emulate them.
That's what makes pprune such a damn good resource.
cheers!
foggy.