I have a PhD in chemistry, mid 30's, single. I do very much enjoy my research position (I'm in a postdoc which pays about $70k, but will likely move on to a job that pays around $100k when I finish in ~1 year), but now that I'm out of grad school and money is an actual thing that is at least somewhat accessible to me, and matters in the pursuit of a girlfriend-->wife-->kids, I'm starting to become very self-conscious about my decisions, and the fact that I could have jerked off through a CS degree and gotten a $250k job at 21 like everybody else did during the social media boom.

I like chemistry, I like research, but I feel that I shouldn't because of how much less pure science pays than other careers. How do I muster some pride over my accomplishments, and keep going? I don't have the time to go back to school and study other things just so I can become a virtual basedmilk developer at 40.