Really I sometimes think pilots are the actual blame of the industry. To much of the downsides and not enough of the upsides. Yea you may make 20k a year for a while and yea the living conditions might not be well, and once again yea you may be starving at the end of the day, but I can tell you really any job out there is going to start out low, it may not be 20k low but I can tell you I look forward to flying jets. After reading through all of this and my dream is to be an airline pilot (earning my ppl right now) i still dont think you all respect your job. A couple years down the road I can almost bet you are in decent financial shape and you will look back and not regret what you and went through. Every one is always saying the grass is greener on the other side but in reality its not common. Do what you enjoy and love every minute of it because the next day you may not have that chance again.