I’ve decided not to become a chess grandmaster. It’s not that I think I couldn’t eventually be very good, nor is it that I no longer enjoy playing. What I found was that the people who were consistently beating me had played as many as 10,000 games (when you play online at games.yahoo.com, there’s an information bar that tells you how many games your opponents have won and lost). Again, it’s not that I think I couldn’t eventually become as skilled as those people, but the fact is, in order to do so, I would have to waste a significant portion of my life. Even if I was able to hone my skills twice as quickly as others, I would still be sitting in front of a computer for roughly 3000 hours. Meaning that if I worked 24 hours a day for 4 months straight, I’d be finished. And what would I have accomplished? People might say, “Hey, that guy is a better-than-average chess player.” I’ll find a more worthwhile pursuit, thank you.