Before you leave a career to get a phud, make sure you look at a couple statistics for your field:

% of students who enter programs who actually finish
average time to degree

And this is the big one:

% of phds who get tenure track jobs within 3 years of finishing their phud. (In the sciences, it may be a bit longer, since many people in the sciences do post-docs.)

In my field, English, last I checked, it looked like this:

70% actually finish their degree
average time to degree is 8.4 years

And only 70% of people who finish get tenure track jobs within 3 years.

What's worse, some 1/3rd of people who get tenure TRACK jobs don't get tenure.

In some field, there's lots of work outside academia. In others, pretty much none.

(I'd love to convince Microsoft or Google that they need a resident Shakespeare person, but so far, no luck!)

Academics looks GREAT from the outside, but a bit less great from the inside. If you're lucky enough to be one of those who gets a decent job (as I am), you can really love your job. (It's still hard work, but if you love it, it's good work, too.)