I've been on a pilot track in my former life, but got out due to bad eyesight, which made it risky to invest more. Now I've been a software developer for 20 years, but it doesn't make me happy. It's an ok job and provides food and shelter for my familiy, but I wish I could get back into aviation...
I know a family that did that. We're not really in touch any more but he was a tech worker in London in the mid 00s and she was in corporate purchasing or something.
A few years ago they upped and moved to Wales and operate a cattle farm, they also home-school their kids. Mostly now I see their ads for pasture-fed beef on facebook. They seem happy.
People romanticize all sorts of things, welding, nursing...
My grandfather was a farmer and died after an accident cleaning something with gasoline. Sounds dumb (I don't know the details) but farmers tend to have accidents like that because the whole job is working with dangerous machinery, chemicals, and animals, and a "family farmer" has an incentive to take risks someone working for a corporation doesn't.
I remember a news story about a farmer who passed out from breathing something toxic, so his oldest son goes to get him, he passes out too, his wife goes...the whole family died like that one after the other.
Well, most of them love the flying part itself. Problem is everything else. With software development it's just the opposite. The perks are great, but the actual work can be very boring...
