The Hard Choices
After much consideration and deliberation, I've decided that change needs to occur. With a heavy heart, I'm putting my dreams of a career in aviation on hold for the time being. Unless something incredible happens or I win the lottery, it just isn't financially feasible to do all of the things that need to be done to get to where I want to be and still be effective at anything else at the same time. I love flying, and I would need to do hundreds more hours of training and flying before I could even consider a decent job as a pilot. Even then, it would be a relatively low paying job that would put a serious dent in my income and leave me in serious debt at a critical time (the time when I'll be buying a home, starting a family, etc.).
I will, however, continue with my university degree program. I'm half way through already, and the attention that I have to put into it is minimal compared with everything else I'm doing (as sad as that sounds, the degree program just isn't difficult for me at all, just time consuming and tedious). The degree program will still be expensive in its own right, and I'll be taking on additional debt to pay for it, but it's not nearly as much as I would be if I were doing both that and continued flight training and time building. Perhaps it would be possible to transfer my general education credits to a computer science program so that the degree can at least be in the field I'm working in.
For the time being I am going to re-focus my attention on my existing career and do whatever I can to make that as successful and effective as possible. I am going to try and bring a renewed energy to my full-time regular job, as well as my contracting work and personal projects. I've already begun to reduce my personal responsibilities for supporting older personal applications and clients so that I can focus and be more attentive to the present. The DtDNS service, while stable and successful, needs some attention and updating. ZonkBoard needs to be sold off or allowed to rest in peace (hardly anything has been done with that since 2003, though there are still people using it). The revenue it generates really no longer justifies keeping it online.
In any case, I still love to fly, and would love to continue on with my flight training and time building. Perhaps after my existing debt is paid down and I have some spare cash to burn, I will take to the skies as a student once more. For the time being I will have to enjoy the benefits of my private pilot certificate as time and finances allow.
It's been a tough decision and a rough couple of months of internal struggle, but for now reality and practicality need to reign over my lofty goals. I learned to fly, and I will have to be satisfied with that much for now.
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