I had the exact same experience, when I went to a chess club for the first time. I realised that to keep pace with those guys I’d have to spend more time than I

I had the exact same experience, when I went to a chess club for the first time. I realised that to keep pace with those guys I’d have to spend more time than I was willing to on getting better. Especially with MMR based systems. No matter how good you get your win/loss ratio will end up around 50%. So you have to ask yourself why you need to keep getting better. To me It’s really about finding a level of “good” that you can maintain comfortably, while maintaining interest. And also realise that games aren’t vocations. It’s fine to play a game until you stop having fun, then stop playing the game.