Why have a career in accounting and not finance?

I have a hard time trying to understand as for why someone will choose to have a career in accounting and not finance. For one, accountants get paid much less on average. It can be said that this is because bankers work long hours. However, corporate finance has WLB similar to that of an accountant, with the only difference being that corp fin pays more, and that the work is more interesting. Don't get me wrong, I respect accountants 100%. Much like with farmers and truckers, they put up with a lot of shit and do the work necessary for the whole country to keep on moving. Without accountants, we can't make models and the financial systems collapse. With so much opportunity to grow in finance, it's hard to believe that very intelligent folks are willing to settle at a Big 4 and keep doing the same repetitive work for their entire lives. Thoughts?

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My career center in undergrad pushed accounting and the CPA path. They didn't know much about high finance, so I didn't know much about high finance in undergrad. My guidance counselor tried to get me to do an accounting concentration, but I refused. I was a business major. Only a couple people went into IB. One of them made MD at GS/MS.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

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