I love a large number of areas of science. I love teaching myself things. My entire life has been self study and teaching myself things. It's always been other things that get in the way - mental health problems, family issues, jobs.
It wasn't particularly planned. I had applied for masters' degrees before and got turned down so pretty much off the radar and pretty much given up. Also was very sceptical about the value of masters' degrees, the overlap of undergrad modules and packing them up as a master's etc. Met someone that said I think you should apply for a PhD knew what they were talking about, you'd be really suited and I think you'd like it. So did months of research and did.
Ironically the stipend is more than I've earned in any job. It's peanuts to a lot of staff/other people who've come into PhDs so I just keep silent on that one. Career/job pretty much dead before this. If I finish certainly some interesting new areas to apply for jobs in. Ironically enough I can pass PhD interviews, but I can't pass a job interview.
So basically a PhD is basically getting paid large amounts of money to do on paper what I want to do anyway.