Decisions decisions.

Well its the end of June and overall its been a pretty good month. I flew a lot. Made some really good money and notched another 100 hours in the logbook. The only downside is spending so much time away from the family. If things were like this year round, I'd be a much happier pilot. But as things go, months like May and June are few and far between. In fact the most hours I had flown in any month prior to May was 103 and that was last June. 68 was my high for the 11 month span between big paychecks.

Freight has been decent to me as far as pay goes. Its the QOL (quality of life) that really takes a beating. If I stay on and upgrade my pay will go up quite a bit, but the QOL will still suffer. Just how much is turbo jet PIC worth? Is it worth a $36,000 base salary? Is it worth living my life tied to a pager? Is it worth only seeing my family for several days a month? I keep telling myself that my next job will be better, but will it? If we (Erin, Jack and I) tough it out for another 18 months at my current company, is it really going to be worth it in the end? Am I going to be able to land a job that will significantly increase my QOL to make up for lost time? Is turbo jet PIC really worth that much? I don't know. I thought I could do it no problem, but lately it gets harder and harder to look at my pager on Sundays and realize I'm not going to see my family for another week or two. Now Jack is able to say " I miss you Daddy" and "Come home soon" and its hard to hear when I'm 1,000 miles away sitting in some dump hotel waiting for my pager to go off so I can go build hours for that better job. Is turbo jet PIC worth that? I don't think so.
As much as I like money, its not the most important thing in life. If we can be happier with me making less, but home more, then that's what needs to be done. My career is important, but my family comes first.