> Is it worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to gamble that my new lower paying job is less stressful?
Worth it in what sense? You sound like you're trying to do a statistical and financially logical risk analysis. If you have burnout, that's just not an option. It sucks, but simply trying to do that math and somehow compare it to non-financial things that are important would probably take the help of a trained therapist.
So the answer is just going to vary.
If you are not on a path to burnout, who cares if the job is objectively stressful? Maybe you enjoy that environment and that's fine, in that context a logical financial analysis makes sense. Plenty of people are extremely happy and extremely successful in stressful high paying jobs, plenty of other people would happily make much less money if it means they get to spend more time with family, mentor, work for a non-profit they care about, do pro-bono work, switch fields, ... the list is long. People's motivations are complicated and I assume yours are too, or if they are not now that they are likely to become different as time goes on.
If you are on a path to burnout, the amount the job pays matters a lot less. Certainly if you can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars of theoretical future income the answer is comically obvious -- yes, it is worth it to find something more sustainable. I've never made half a FAANG salary when compared to people with similar experience and education at those places, and would still give up half my salary to avoid it. But I also don't think it's obvious whether you are on a path to burnout, you could try engaging a therapist to help make sure that you are tracking your feelings at regular intervals to see the derivative, but often it's even harder to see from the inside than it is from the outside (by which I mean friends/family more than work colleagues).
That said, money in the bank vastly reduces the stress that contributes to burnout, no question. Future earnings, not so much. Those are in the future, and imply that you will even be capable of continuing in the role you're in that long.
A serious analysis of future financial rewards and career options is a thing that is almost beside the point when you're actually dealing with burnout. Uncertainty about careers is more of a professional coach thing, if I had a professional coach suggest to me that I should do a back of the envelope calculation of how much money I stand to gain if I merely push myself to work for another year and then burn out I am walking out the door by the time they finish the sentence. It's just the wrong type of advice for the issue at hand.
Worth it in what sense? You sound like you're trying to do a statistical and financially logical risk analysis. If you have burnout, that's just not an option. It sucks, but simply trying to do that math and somehow compare it to non-financial things that are important would probably take the help of a trained therapist.
So the answer is just going to vary.
If you are not on a path to burnout, who cares if the job is objectively stressful? Maybe you enjoy that environment and that's fine, in that context a logical financial analysis makes sense. Plenty of people are extremely happy and extremely successful in stressful high paying jobs, plenty of other people would happily make much less money if it means they get to spend more time with family, mentor, work for a non-profit they care about, do pro-bono work, switch fields, ... the list is long. People's motivations are complicated and I assume yours are too, or if they are not now that they are likely to become different as time goes on.
If you are on a path to burnout, the amount the job pays matters a lot less. Certainly if you can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars of theoretical future income the answer is comically obvious -- yes, it is worth it to find something more sustainable. I've never made half a FAANG salary when compared to people with similar experience and education at those places, and would still give up half my salary to avoid it. But I also don't think it's obvious whether you are on a path to burnout, you could try engaging a therapist to help make sure that you are tracking your feelings at regular intervals to see the derivative, but often it's even harder to see from the inside than it is from the outside (by which I mean friends/family more than work colleagues).
That said, money in the bank vastly reduces the stress that contributes to burnout, no question. Future earnings, not so much. Those are in the future, and imply that you will even be capable of continuing in the role you're in that long.
A serious analysis of future financial rewards and career options is a thing that is almost beside the point when you're actually dealing with burnout. Uncertainty about careers is more of a professional coach thing, if I had a professional coach suggest to me that I should do a back of the envelope calculation of how much money I stand to gain if I merely push myself to work for another year and then burn out I am walking out the door by the time they finish the sentence. It's just the wrong type of advice for the issue at hand.