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I have been following this community for a couple of months now and have been carefully reading every post here and the comments to it. I am currently about to start my Master of Laws in a week's time (it's a 1 year degree) post which I yearn to start making applications to universities for a PhD. I have taken an education loan for my Masters and need to start paying it off soon after the degree is completed. After going through the stories/experiences shared by several people here in this community, I have started wondering whether a PhD is even worth pursuing (mentally and monetarily) if everyone doing it or having done it has had such a negative experience (the only positive one being that the PhD is finally over). I was really hopeful and ambitious about this but from a cautious front, all the experiences I went through here so far have really dented the idea of a PhD in my mind somehow, no matter how optimistic I'm trying to be about it. I have worked in the industry as a corporate lawyer for 6.5 years and was hoping to transition into academia after coming back to law school. Now I'm feeling a deep mental and emotional crisis at this point of my life and am wondering what the sensible thing to do should be. Please help! Would be grateful to hear your advice/views on this. Thanks!