Reddit reviews 101 Careers in Mathematics - Second Edition

Check out the book 101 Careers in Mathematics.

Find a copy of 101 Careers in Mathematics and look through it.

You may also be interested that a math major is among the best for taking the MCAT and LSAT (for medical school and law school, respectively).

Specific to your situation, I would concur with the other posters that say that upper-division mathematics is quite different from lower-division, and this difference scares some people away. You should try some courses and see for yourself!

Define "being a mathematician" because the job market is fantastic at the moment for people with MAs, Ph.Ds, and even BA/BSs in math. Data science, quantitative analysis, actuarial science, or algorithmic trading, to name a few, are all jobs that if you have the chops and maybe a bit of coding experience are available. I'd consider anybody working in those positions a mathematician, as their daily work is going to involve a good bit of mathematical machinery. Maybe take a look at this book if you need inspiration.

The job market in academia on the other hand is extremely competitive, and if you haven't started on grad school yet, I don't have any hard evidence to back this up but I think you may be running out of time to achieve that, especially if you want to start a family, etc. So if you define being a mathematician as being a researcher in academia, you're right to be scared, and taking the risk is going to be a tough call. But if you feel like the inability to be a research mathematician means you have to work "crap jobs," rise above that - there are plenty of fine jobs out there that use math that are a hell of a lot easier to attain than academia. Even if you make it through grad school and find yourself not able to enter academia, a Ph.D is well respected in industry and unless you studied a very esoteric topic, you'll be easily employable.

Not gonna tell you how to live life, or what your current situation is though. It's your call in the end.