When should I quit

[trenton]

I am struggling with knowing when to give up and when to persevere. This is about my career as a chess player. It is hard to make it as a chess player. I seem to stake a lot on My ability to be successful. I don't know where to draw the line between being too stubborn and not being stubborn enough.

My struggle started when my family wanted me to go college, but there was no major for becoming a professional chess player. I started struggling to find other paths for my life. I have identified a few alternatives to pursuing chess.

After finishing an associate degree, I didn't see the point in continuing college. Instead I started working a job I hate at a grocery store. I was already working during college to help pay off the loans. I've had this job for five years now. The prospects of working here forever makes me feel hopeless about my life. I worry about being stuck in meaningless work forever.

I have been looking for opportunities to replace this job with something I enjoy. I struggled to find jobs teaching chess for years until I finally landed a job with chess in schools. I have been working here for about six months. The students love my lessons and I love it when they challenge me. My least favorite part is when the kids refuse to behave. In fact one kid said the n word.

Even with this job, I still don't make enough money to replace my job at the grocery store. I therefore work two jobs. Therefore, if I want to replace the job I hate, I would have to get a third job then quit. I am trying to get a job with varsity tutors so I can teach chess online. If i make enough money during the week, I can finally have my weekends open permanently for chess tournaments.

I am wondering if I should quit pursuing chess for a couple of reasons. Trying to set up my life in the way I want it seems to be making life more difficult. This is far from my ideal of travelling the world to play the top grandmasters.

Ben finegold became a grandmaster at age 40, so it is not impossible for me to become a professional chess player, it's just difficult. It makes it hard to tell when to quit. The sunk cost fallacy kicks in when I think about all the courses and books I purchased for chess and all the time I spent studying and playing in tournaments.

I have a few alternatives for what I could pursue. The problem is that they probably require me to go back to college. This does not appeal to me. 

1. I happen to be good at philosophy and bible studies because I listened to hundreds of hours of actualized.org. Maybe I could build on this. I helped a woman restore her faith in after losing both of her children.

2. I could be good at working with a research team to mitigate polarization in politics. I stopped a lot of fights by teaching my family about self deception and I helped my coworkers get 60,000 dollars in student debt forgiven because my research.

3. I happen to be gifted in quantitative reasoning. I scored 130 on the iq test and I would probably be good at engineering. I just never tried pursuing this kind of career.

4. My alternative passion is teaching emotional mastery in schools. I have been skeptical of the educational system because it ignores life saving teachings. For example a non-profit similar to chess in schools could be used for cbt or other emotional mastery teachings to help prevent suicide. Spiritual teaching could be included to some degree.

I hesitate to pursue this because I myself suffer from depression and I have struggled to cure myself somehow. I still suffer from suicidal thoughts even though I tried educating myself on emotional mastery, I tried pills, I tried therapy, I tried the forgiveness exercise, and other things. All of them helped partially, but I still feel stuck in the same pattern. Part of the hopelessness is the job I hate. Despite my continued struggle with depression, I managed to help my brother stop his suicidal thoughts. I could be good at helping people, but I struggle to help myself.

My top values include open mindedness, pure understanding, learning, truth, authenticity, helping others grow, and objectivity.

When should I quit?

[lostingenosmaze]

2 hours ago, trenton said:

Ben finegold became a grandmaster at age 40

He started learning chess at age 5, though. When did you start?

[hyruga]

Quit when you found a much better path.

Edited November 8, 2023 by hyruga

[trenton]

@lostingenosmaze I started learning when I was 7. I'm also aware that some of the best players in the world were born to chess coaches. I don't know how I'm going to compete with them.

[Raze]

Being a chess grandmaster alone is not a good career

[Salvijus]

Would you know where to begin if you were to follow an emotional mastery teacher route? The thing is your ability to help would largely depend on your own development I think. But sounds like a fulfilling prospect. If that's your calling

[HMD]

Get rich first, build some business solely focused on money, then pursue whatever you want. Easy. Never quit. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by HMD

[Leo Gura]

You need to develop some line of work besides chess. That doesn't mean you have to quit chess. But chess just does not make a solid enough career unless you are worldclass.

The problem with chess is that it doesn't add that much value to peoples' lives, so it's difficult to live off that.

Also, limiting your whole creative output only to chess is just very limited. There are so many other areas of life where you could contribute besides that. Unless you are a worldclass grand master, keep chess as a hobby/side-gig. Not your main career.

You might find that this is a win-win because you may enjoy chess more if your whole livilihood doesn't hinge on it. Doing professional chess can suck the joy out of what should be a fun hobby.

If you think about it on a fundamental level, chess is a game. It was never meant to be a profession. Trying to turn it into a profession is not a good idea, even if you could do it. If you really thino about it, this notion of chess as a career is a preverted recent invention. Chess was never supposed to be about that. So you are ramming a square peg into a round hole in trying to do that. Even someone like Gary Kasparov, he has moved on to writing books about politics, etc. Because chess is just too narrow a thing to devote your whole life to. Chess's proper place in life is as a hobby, not a career. Those who turn it into a career are threading a very fine needle. And it's not at all clear that this is even good for them. There's way more to life than chess. Why artificially limit yourself so much? The whole point of chess is to enjoy it, not grind it out for years. It's the same problem as turning sex into a career. Sex is not supposed to be a career.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Razard86]

30 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You need to develop some line of work besides chess. That doesn't mean you have to quit chess. But chess just does not make a solid enough career unless you are worldclass.

The problem with chess is that it doesn't add that much value to peoples' lives, so it's difficult to live off that.

Also, limiting your whole creative output only to chess is just very limited. There are so many other areas of life where you could contribute besides that. Unless you are a worldclass grand master, keep chess as a hobby/side-gig. Not your main career.

You might find that this is a win-win because you may enjoy chess more if your whole livilihood doesn't hinge on it. Doing professional chess can suck the joy out of what should be a fun hobby.

If you think about it on a fundamental level, chess is a game. It was never meant to be a profession. Trying to turn it into a profession is not a good idea, even if you could do it. If you really thino about it, this notion of chess as a career is a preverted recent invention. Chess was never supposed to be about that. So you are ramming a square peg into a round hole in trying to do that. Even someone like Gary Kasparov, he has moved on to writing books about politics, etc. Because chess is just too narrow a thing to devote your whole life to. Chess's proper place in life is as a hobby, not a career. Those who turn it into a career are threading a very fine needle. And it's not at all clear that this is even good for them. There's way more to life than chess. Why artificially limit yourself so much? The whole point of chess is to enjoy it, not grind it out for years. It's the same problem as turning sex into a career. Sex is not supposed to be a career.

This is an interesting perspective. You stated that chess was never supposed to be about that. I'm sure you could make that argument about basketball when James Naismith was using peach baskets as a goal to score on. I think with most games you age out at some point and that's why people who play games for a career eventually go on to do something else. 

Also with your point about threading a very fine needle, you can make that argument about almost anything at this point. Outside of working for the government pretty much anything in the private sector is just survival of the fittest. Also now with all this A.I. technology streamlining previous work is going to push a bunch of jobs out. 

I think the OP is probably better working for a non-profit on some of those emotional/sociopolitical ideas he was bringing up if he has a passion for that line of work. But I would suggest if he wants to become a Grand Master he needs to devote himself like a demon to practicing ridiculous hours. Only problem with that...is burnout can become a likely result.

[StarStruck]

Nobody can answer this for you. The question you need to ask yourself is how much you love chess. Doing something for ego will fuck you up.  You need to be honest with how much you love chess. If she is not your beloved you need to let her go. 

[Raze]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

 

If you think about it on a fundamental level, chess is a game. It was never meant to be a profession. Trying to turn it into a profession is not a good idea, even if you could do it. If you really thino about it, this notion of chess as a career is a preverted recent invention. Chess was never supposed to be about that. So you are ramming a square peg into a round hole in trying to do that. Even someone like Gary Kasparov, he has moved on to writing books about politics, etc. Because chess is just too narrow a thing to devote your whole life to. Chess's proper place in life is as a hobby, not a career. Those who turn it into a career are threading a very fine needle. And it's not at all clear that this is even good for them. There's way more to life than chess. Why artificially limit yourself so much? The whole point of chess is to enjoy it, not grind it out for years. It's the same problem as turning sex into a career. Sex is not supposed to be a career.

If it has enough demand to fund a lifestyle, moral judgements about whether something should or shouldn’t be a career don’t matter. Sports like soccer or basketball were meant to be games, but I doubt the famous players making millions from it would be better off working some office job or trade. Just because you do a job doesn’t mean you limit your life to you, you can have a career in chess and have other interests and hobbies. That being said a full chess career is rare.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Raze

[ici]

It's just not valuable and entertaining enough for most people to care.

However, you could do something good for the chess community. That's the main pool of people who would pay for anything you do. I just don't think they're many.

Also don't forget about AI beating you.

Here's a suggestion: make this chessboard a reality:

 

Or - a chessboard that works over the internet with moving 3d figures like the one in the video would also be fun. I wish I could play chess like that with my friends and I am the kind of person who doesn't even care about chess.

In other words, do something related to the game but do not play the game itself. Do not make yourself the product because it's very hard to stand out. Trust me nobody cares if you're good at chess. I have heard people say "this is my favourite sports player / sports team" but I have never heard anyone say "this is my favourite chess player."

[trenton]

I would like to mention that Recently got a bunch of self help books. One of them is about how following your passion is a trap. I've been following this advice and it led me to misery. I'm excited about learning why following my passion is a bad thing.

[Leo Gura]

19 hours ago, Raze said:

If it has enough demand to fund a lifestyle, moral judgements about whether something should or shouldn’t be a career don’t matter.

I wasn't making a moral judgment. I was pointing out why chess is a bad way to fund a lifestyle. Chess is way more niche than any other sport. And all professional atheletes are on a ticking clock. They all need some career beyond their sport because it only lasts a decade or two at best.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Leo Gura

[An young being]

The thing is, there are many who are passionate about chess, since it's an entertaining game and you don't have to break your bones, so automatically the competition becomes very high.  But teaching others chess (either part time or full time if you are extremely good at it) is a good idea, since teaching itself is a satisfying job for many, as it involves serving a community and also there are many who wants to learn chess as a hobby.

[Bando]

A few ideas, first what skills have you gained from chess that you can extrapolate to other career fields? I used to be a heavy gamer but was able to funnel, that creative, competitive, problem solving into programming. I started of learning how to mod a few of my favorite games, to building smaller basic games, to hackathons and then ended up becoming a software dev, it was not in my plans at all but I didn't see gaming as one skill but an outlet for skills I already possessed.

Second, look into content creation, its 2023, people can make part-time to full-time income by creating a community about things that align with their passions. I recently watched a video on how some guy increased his chess rating from 0 to 1700 Elo in 1 year, that video got over 500k views and it came from a small channel with less than 5k subs. 

You can make similar videos like that, you can make a beginner series for people just starting off with chess, theres so many options.

The bottom line is your not being creative enough stop thinking linearly, the people who make big money doing "passion activities" are either extremely gifted or have some other unfair advantage.

If you don't fall into that camp the best thing to do is to try building a community around your passion by uploading interesting content (usually remaking content you already watch on the subject.)

I have a friend that loves solving Rubix cubes, hes been to a few tournements and was able to place in the top 3 rankings for some of them. Theres no market for solving Rubix cubes, so obviously the compensation was shit, but he started recording his solves and uploading them to youtube. Then his followers started asking for tutorials on how to solve the cube, more advanced methods, tricks to get 15sec solves ect. This was close to 1.5 years ago. He recently opened up a patreon where he gives coaching to beginners looking to improve their solve time scores and also does custom solve reviews. He only has 12-15k subs

Hes not at a full- time income yet but he was able to quit his job and do uber part-time, which is a much more  enjoyable life than what he previously had. 

[StareDog1]

you could try streaming chess. It's difficult to get an audience though I think with the big streamers being there. But if you play anyways and you create good content/have a good persona it might work to fund a small side hustle. Going full time is probably not your way.

[trenton]

On 11/8/2023 at 2:03 PM, Salvijus said:

Would you know where to begin if you were to follow an emotional mastery teacher route? The thing is your ability to help would largely depend on your own development I think. But sounds like a fulfilling prospect. If that's your calling

I would begin with doing everything I can to stop my depression. Assuming I get all of that worked out, it still seems difficult to make a career out this. My best guess Is to form a non profit like chess in schools, but I don't know that this is good enough. I wonder if bringing this stuff up with a career counselor would help.

[StarStruck]

@trenton what is your chess rating?

[trenton]

@StarStruck 1909 uscf