I'm only a single data point, but I always wanted to teach at a university. I just didn't for the first 50 years of my life because the pay outside was so much

I'm only a single data point, but I always wanted to teach at a university. I just didn't for the first 50 years of my life because the pay outside was so much better. But then I finally made the scary decision to quit the track I'd been on my whole life and started teaching at a university full time. And I've never been happier. What a great, fulfilling job, to see my students run off and start careers in high spirits. I'm not rich, but I have enough money for my modest lifestyle, and you'd have to pay me a VERY large salary (say $2 million per year) to trade my remaining life for some lousy product du jour.