My Passion for Flying: Is It Normal?

I posted this on another forum, but figured that some of you could
probably relate to what I'm going through.

Dave
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Over the past year or so I've gotten into numerous discussions with
friends about finding our passion in life. Most discussions have
centered around our careers and the consensus is that few of us are
fortunate enough to have careers that we are passionate about. Those
who do get to do what they enjoy everyday and make a decent amount of
money doing it are truly fortunate. And many of use talk a good game
and say that we would be willing to give up jobs that pay a great
salary but that we don't particularly care for in order to pursue our
passions, whether it be teaching, flying, etc. But at the end of the
day very few of us are willing to actually part with our way of life
to pursue something that we are passionate about yet would afford us a
less comfortable lifestyle. I myself am guilty of that in that if
money were not an issue I would probably go back for an engineering
doctorate and teach. Maybe one day I will.

For others, the jobs that we force ourselves to go to everyday simply
provides the resources to follow our other passions. And if that's
the case then maybe it's worth the sacrifice. You may wonder how this
ties in to the subject of this post. Well, my love of aviation goes
back for many years and I've known that I've wanted to fly for almost
as long. This is particularly interesting since I didn't fly for the
first time until my freshman year of undergraduate. One day while
having one of these discussions a friend asked when my love of flying
came about. I could only say that I've had it for years, but couldn't
quite but a finger on the details. Then one day recently I heard
"Wild Blue Yonder", or at least I think that's the Air Force anthem.
Suddenly I was taken back to my memories growing up building model
airplanes, RC planes, and model rockets. Just hearing that song
brought back memories I had long forgotten, but that certainly shaped
my love of flying.

After I received my PPL I figured that maybe my desire to hang around
at airports would diminish. But I still find myself looking up and
getting excited whenever a plane flies overhead, I'll take the long
way home from work just so that I can drive past Teterboro or any
other airport. And on nice days when traffic is departing from Rwys 24
and 19, I'll pull up next to the fence and watch the Lears, Falcons,
Gulfstreams, Citations, and all the rest take off and land for hours
on end. I find it to be therapeutic. I still relish going down to
the Flying W airport, where I learned to fly, on a beautiful spring or
fall day and sitting on the grass watching other people fly. A great
deal of my reading involves flying in some form and the amount of time
I spend thinking about it daily sometime leads me to think that maybe
I'm addicted. To me it's the perfect combination of science and fun.

Don't get me wrong, I have other interests. I enjoy studying history
and science, traveling, spending time with family and friends, and
have just fulfilled another lifelong goal by starting fencing lessons.
I have learned to scuba dive, plus I have a list of other goals I
hope to achieve very soon. But at the end of the day I can't escape
this flight addiction. I started at 29 and certainly wish I had
started about 10 years earlier. But I also think I have an
appreciation for it now that I probably wouldn't have had back then.
I'm certainly not the best pilot in the world, certainly no better
than average in my estimate despite any compliments I may have
received in the past. So given that and that I'm almost 32, it's
unlikely that I will ever fly professionally. Part of it comes back
to giving up so much in order to do so, and I certainly admire those
that have done it. But maybe I'll go for the CFI/II and instruct
part-time. I've always had a gift for teaching and maybe this is the
perfect combination of what I enjoy and what I'm good at.

I didn't mean to go into a long rant. I just wanted to see whether
others out there find themselves ensnared by this hobby to the extent
they wonder about their sanity. I had a dinner with a friend
yesterday and I told her that I was considering tallying up all the
money I had spend on flying to date. She told me not to, and asked if
it really mattered how much I 'd spent? It was something I did for
myself and it was something that made me very happy so how could I
place a price on that? She told me that so few people ever find
anything that they're passionate about, and even fewer have an
opportunity to make it a reality. I don't think I'm alone given what
I know about others on this board, but sometimes we need a sanity
check.

Dave