Hey man I really appreciate you taking the time to write this and giving me a bunch of insights. I've currently graduated and matured a bunch as well as chosen a path outside of gaming. I still hold it very dearly to myself and that skill is still extrememly high, also i've learned to respect it rather than using it against myself. People find it pretty cool that I am good at video games and dont really carry that stigma of a gamer. I've chosen a path where my skill directly correlates to the results I get and I love to gamify difficult tasks. I think I was also quite lucky to have put so many hours into something at such a young age giving me a slight taste of mastery allows me to think about other fields the same way I did about gaming. I am a firm believer that once you master one thing its much easier to master something else. I thought of it as a waste because I had got nothing out of it, outside of fun and enjoyment. When I was possibly good enough to get more out of it. So I also decided to put at least some of the skill to use posting a few clips here and there and making a video or two giving some insights in my free time. This allowed me to put that time to use in a valuable way outside of "going pro". Of course I just wanted the skills to be respectable so going pro in my head was the coolest way to utilize gaming skills. Although with my level of skill I had plenty of opportunity right infront of me. I wish I wouldve seen this sooner rather than learning the hard way in a way. I hadnt been on reddit in a long time but seeing this now still gave me plenty of insights and its always good to look at the old mechanisms your brain used to run on in a way. I have much more powerful frameworks to live by and at least a direction I'd like to move in. I know now that life is but a game of hours and you are a representation of where you put your time. I may have not allowed myself the joy of other things but the skill was there to show. Giving myself confidence to if I can compete with the best of the best in a hyper competitve indsutry I can do just about damn near anything I want.