Considering that, not only will you (and many others, it's not personal) work for free, you will pay to fly is a pretty strong signal.
Proclaiming that others, of whom you have no knowledge, had it easier than you is presumptuous, at the least. In forty years of flying, I have buried friends, been thru bankruptcies, been thru wars, struck and lost a career. I had it easy compared to many, many pilots on this and other websites.
It is not easy, it never was, never will be. There are no shortcuts. I know a guy who had 5,000 hours of Cherokee CFI time before he got a job as co-pilot on a B99. The Seventies were hard, made the present look like a cakewalk--RJ jobs by the thousand.
That's all and good luck
GF