The biggest impediment to your breaking out of circular thinking, might be thinking automatically that any other job would entail a big pay cut. Because first of all, maybe not. Your skills are in high demand. If anything it's the opposite problem: If you don't decide for yourself what direction you want to go in, someone out there will always have an opinion. In your case that person was the recruiter you mention, but everyone of course has lots of ideas about where they can put talented people to use. Which is a nice problem to have if you're said talented person, but it becomes about being selective. The recruiter decided where you should work, not you.
Analogies:
1) Maybe I'm quite handsome and let's assume heterosexual for this example, and I never have to ask women out; I just wait for them to ask me. Corollary: I date only the women whom said women want me to date (themselves)!
2) Maybe I'm an accomplished musician and someone's always asking me to join their band. When I do, inevitably the band ends up sucking. Maybe I don't like music anymore?!?! (No, probably I should start my own band, or at least not limit my search to only the bands that go looking and find me. Maybe I should even write to my very favorite band, refer them to some of my amazing work and say I hope we get a chance to work together someday. You never know!)
Secondly (and yes I realize it's been a long time since the "first of all"), just for the sake of argument - if you did take a pay cut, so what? What do you need all that money for... to throw away on rent in a city you hate? Work remotely from someplace cheaper and you might find that the differential amount that you can save each month remains the same or even increases. Just food for thought. Or to get more extreme and "Shit My Dad Says" about it, experience complete unemployment for a while, or be in the army for a stint, and see how much more appealing that "low" salary job is!
Bottom line: Don't be a prisoner of the golden handcuffs!
Analogies:
1) Maybe I'm quite handsome and let's assume heterosexual for this example, and I never have to ask women out; I just wait for them to ask me. Corollary: I date only the women whom said women want me to date (themselves)!
2) Maybe I'm an accomplished musician and someone's always asking me to join their band. When I do, inevitably the band ends up sucking. Maybe I don't like music anymore?!?! (No, probably I should start my own band, or at least not limit my search to only the bands that go looking and find me. Maybe I should even write to my very favorite band, refer them to some of my amazing work and say I hope we get a chance to work together someday. You never know!)
Secondly (and yes I realize it's been a long time since the "first of all"), just for the sake of argument - if you did take a pay cut, so what? What do you need all that money for... to throw away on rent in a city you hate? Work remotely from someplace cheaper and you might find that the differential amount that you can save each month remains the same or even increases. Just food for thought. Or to get more extreme and "Shit My Dad Says" about it, experience complete unemployment for a while, or be in the army for a stint, and see how much more appealing that "low" salary job is!
Bottom line: Don't be a prisoner of the golden handcuffs!