Piloting a grand ocean liner or a heat-packing warship is a fairly glorious occupation. With the former, you take passengers around the world on the trip of a lifetime; the latter is about protecting our shores and our allies from threats at home and abroad. Either way seems pretty glorious to us.

For all those captains not concerned about those situations—what you might call the "big time" of captaining—the glory question is answered with a sort of, "meh." 

Don't get us wrong: taking stuff from point A to point B is interesting the first couple of times you do it, and there's something cool about being trusted to navigate the great blue beyond. But by nautical mile 10,000, you might find more glory in your nightly all-crew card game than in your actual job. You're not likely to enjoy legendary, larger-than-life glory—and when you do, you might not like what it takes to achieve it.

 

Okay maybe we would. (Source)

Captain Richard Phillips is an excellent example. He wrote a book about his experience as a ship captain and was played by Tom Hanks in a movie named after him. That's a pretty glorious thing—but what actually got him there isn't something we'd choose to go through.

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