Good Salary,Bad conditions:What to do;

I work as a computer helpdesk support in a marine company.Repairing,maintanence and system operator
in an as/400 system.I work for two years and i
take twice the money i normally must take for this kind of job.When i got the job my employer told me that i will also start programming in cobol/400 but never code anything yet.I think that i have stack learning and i know that the IT industry is very demanding.I am very interesting about hardware and network subjects but i think that the salaries are much lower than programmers jobs.Is it worth to loose half of the salary i earn to risk and change a job i like more?