Once upon a time, I with with similar thoughts. I had graduated with my commercial/instrument/multi and a management degree, and ran right into the Gulf War which ended my career before it began as one of the major airlines that promised to hire me, went Ch7 and was gone - as were countless jobs across the industry, so I needed to pivot away from what was my dream. It was not easy.

Fast forward, and while having a full time career outside aviation, I decided to look into the Gulfstream Airlines program where you paid about 25K to fly right seat, and I was going to be very happy doing that part time on my own terms (since I was paying for it), and I could keep my regular work and fly at the same time - then came Colgan, and everything changed overnight, and that option was gone before I had a chance to try it. I regret that missed opportunity to this day, so if you really love this line of work and can make it happen in a responsible, well-planned manner, with a realistic outcome that you're comfortable with, I would encourage you to do a lot of research and follow your dream.