Fulfilling my childhood dream I suppose, is the short answer.
However, saying that to your careers teacher in W Cumbria, in the early 80's, when you're from a very working class background doesn't get you far.
So, left school at 16, got a job, worked lots of overtime, nightshifts and weekends, spent it all on flying. Got my PPL and night rating, bought a share in a Cherokee, did the IMCr and group B rating as it was then. Got a class 1, CPL theory with PPSC, finished the hour building, BCPL course at Compton Abbas (lovely place), then eventually ended up doing the flight test with Dai H-H out of Perth. Followed that with an AFI, then FI rating, upgraded my licence to the full 700 hour CPL and did the ME IR, shortly after that I got my examiners ticket.
Somewhere along the path to a RH seat airline job, I realised that I actually quite enjoyed pottering about in light aircraft being an instructor. So, some decades and around 10k hours later, here I am with my own (small) flying school, I really like my life and love what I do. I get up in a morning and look forward to going to work, it's interesting and stimulating, never boring, which is probably down to the wide selection of people who occupy the LH seat and keep trying to kill me
I've no regrets about my flying at all, yes I would be paid more if I'd got the airline job, but most people I know who've done that eventually end up thinking of aviation as the daily grind.
For me, it's still special and that's how I want it to stay.