In a nutshell, unless you work for a large national carrier, yes.
Following the two excellently considered posts from Wanabee1000 and Three Lions plus the constructive input from macdo, I would like to offer the opinion of a time-served airline captain.
I wanted to be a pilot from the days when I used to carve solid balsa scale model aircraft as a 9 year old.
Later I hung around an aero club, doing all the stuff that nobody else wanted to do and was rewarded with some super flights with super people.
I then flew fighters in the military, instructed at one of the major (now) FTOs and then landed an airline job at a starting salary a good bit lower than the FTO's.
Btw, the FTO paid for my IR and Commercial Instructor Rating! The airline paid for my Type rating and base training !
Magic !
for a while !!
As many have said, the fun waned at a rapid rate, far outweighing the fulfilment I always got from doing the job properly, sometimes with aeroplanes carrying a large number of DDs. The hours were long and the sectors were shorthaul. A large number of taxi journeys, up to 3 hours, were regular occurrences
..and didn't count as a sector !
Family life began to suffer as, even in those days, I was getting fatigued because there was never any time to recover.
To cut a long story short, I endured this for a further 25 years. At the end, I was relieved to retire and go back to flying and instructing on little 'uns again.
The improvement was immediate. I was much better company; I was enjoying teaching motivated, rested students again; I was flying the way it should be.
There was little pressure, no ingratitude; no threat of being failed on your next Base Check because you had dared to question a completely unreasonable request to "help the Company out." I became valued again.
To do it again with the lifetime financial load, the higher hours caps and the continued thanklessness of the modern task ? No,
..no matter what the challenge.
Get a wellpaid job in the City and buy your own aeroplane ! Don't buy your future in the most thankless profession going.
Good Luck.