Not put off...
Oh dear, these posts don't make pleasant reading for someone planning to leave a career and become an airline pilot (because my Class 1 has been denied but surgery will soon make it possible, hopefully).
To those who have dreams of flying as an airline pilot, I would say go for it, you only live once and if you don't go for it you'll regret it for the rest of your life. People who have been working in an industry for some time get jaded and sometimes loose their perspective.
As for wanting to leave aviation and try something else, how about journalism? If you have a good nose for stories and can write in plain English, you could use you flying and aviation expertise to build contacts and write the odd article or sell the odd story idea. Journalism is much tougher to break into than aviation, but if you're good, then who knows, someone might offer you a job as a reporter or feature writer once you've done a certain amount of freelance work for them. I'm thinking of the specialist press to begin with but it could lead to the mainstream press/tv if you're particularly good. It's something you could do in tandem, so you don't leave one career before establishing yourself in another.