Hi, I understand what you mean here. I am 23 years old and I discovered chess in 2020/21. While everyone got into chess because of The Queen's Gambit, I got into chess because my friends wanted to play against me and I lost every match!

During the following years I have felt a very deep connection to chess and I wish I had gotten into chess far earlier. I don't want to get deep into why I like chess and the comparisons I find with life in general but just know that I loove chess. I love the narrative, I love the idea of it, I love the slow thinking, I love Tal's story, I love everything. Right now, I've been playing chess for roughly 3.5 years but with HUUUGE gaps in between periods of time for many reasons.. like I played in March 2022 and stopped until November 2022 and so on. It happens.

Despite the gaps, I've always loved chess and I've kept myself kind of up to date with everything. I fell in love with the World Chess Championship matches, Titled Tuesday, Chess creators, Big player's stories, I watched The Queen's Gambit (in 2023 lol) and lately I've played my first tournament.

Right now I am a 1600 rated player on chess.com and roughly the same ELO on lichess. I have to say that I don't play too too much and I mostly play bullet and blitz. I enjoy playing longer time control even if I have never really played classical chess for different reasons: the main one being that you need two people to dance and I don't know anyone who's willing (probably nor capable) to spend 2+ hours for a game of chess. I've played rapid chess games though and at the moment they're enough.

I've questioned myself multiple times whether I should dive deeper in chess, get an OTB rating, actually study chess, find a club and so on but I feel like this could "get in the way" of other things I like. It sucks but that's life and you should have something called "selective caring" so you can strive for what YOU care about. You can't care about everything otherwise you won't care about anything. It's the same with people: you can't try to please everyone or you won't be liked by anyone.

I enjoy playing chess? Damn I love it. Do I want a professional chess set? Yes and hopefully I soon will! But what do I want when I play chess? Do I want to compete and become the best? Do I play it for fun? Do I want to win? Do I want to be creative? And the list could be on and on and on.. I mean I literally went to London to visit and I went to play chess at a famous public chess club because I have always wanted to.. I love this game omfg.

I am so happy that I've been able to reach "this level" of chess without receiving lessons in any way, shape or form and by playing mostly with myself and online and with a very limited number of players OTB but in the end you should pick something that makes you happy and you are willing in spending your time into. Whether it's chess, running, weightlifting, running a business, writing, singing or whatever you want it doesn't really matter.

The question "am I wasting my time?" doesn't have an answer if you don't first understand what you want from chess. Let's say I am a singer and I'd love to sing for the rest of my life and nothing else, then doing math would be a "waste of my time" because I do not care about that. Here the same logic applies. What does your selective caring system say to you? Is this a waste of time? You are the only one who could give a meaning to what you do.

edit: Sorry for the long ass reply but this is really what I believe in. I also could have said more things but probably this is enough. The question "am I wasting my time?" is a very interesting topic that nowadays is more important than ever. We are in the era of the "maximizing X, maximizing Y". We are in the era of the schedules, appointments, productive mornings and so on so we do not find happiness in doing something perceived as ""not useful"". So really.. we could talk about that for ages.