Teaching has great moments, and generally speaking teaching is a beautiful career. I enjoy the company of my students, even some of the difficult ones.

The problem is that it's become an insane bureaucracy with a toxic ideology that cannot, will not enforce any discipline. I'm addition, I feel the wider culture is disintegrating and you can feel it with the insane polarization, disrespect and distrust of ALL authority, devaluation of education, disrespect of service workers which includes teachers. Materialism, economic instability, general social anxiety and pessimism, nihilism are all problems that are funneled into the school as the nexus of social dysfunction.

Combine all that and the stagnant pay. I'm an IDIOT that for the first 10 years of my career i lived with my parents and had tunnel vision instead of getting out of this career and doing something more lucrative. Twenty years later, I don't own any property and still can't. I've finally made it to the top of the pay scale and just got a nearly 10% paycut. My contract calls for 0.5% yearly raised for the next 4 years with inflation at 5.5% and no other school will hire me at my current salary.

TLDR, teaching CAN be rewarding sometimes, but it's the worst financial mistake of my life