I'm now retired from flying and I believe that the best years of my flying career were within the 80s and 90s. From the turn of the century (onwards) it has all gone downhill. My final few years were bloody awful, where the accountants discovered that they could get blood out of a stone!
Despite my love of flying I wouldn't recommend a flying career to anyone these days. 90 to 100 hours per month of flying longhaul operations is no big deal. However, if the schedulers seem to want to put you within the 18 to 30 hour rest bracket you're, very quickly, becoming tired and irritable. That sort of rest period is cumulative and levels of stress become uncontrollable.
I still have to work for a living, except that I now work 9 till 5 at an office desk. My salary is much reduced, though, I'm happier than I've ever been; weekends off; no night shifts; no commuting for hours on end... a stress free environment. I enjoy my aviation related employment... there is a life beyond flying aeroplanes! The best aviation employment years have long gone... along with pensions and salaries!
Sadly, if pilots just would learn to stick together, we could correct all of the above.