So some quick cliffs:
-Started with $1.75
-Ran it up to $120ish playing 2-5nl.
-Constantly read and thought poker over the last month.
-Have played for 5 years, studied on and off for two, won 14bb/100 over 50k hands at 25nl, cashed out 3k on bovada last year, beat 1/2 live (lol)

So, over the last month, I've gotten about halfway through Applications of Holdem by Janda, watched a ton of RIO videos with the elite membership and taken notes, done a ton of range analysis, equity calcs, constantly went over hands on 2p2, reddit, here; constantly thought about hands. I'm down 15 BI at 5nl.

This game is brutal. Sure, I'm running kinda bad and whatever, but this is 5nl. I don't think I'm good at poker, but jesus christ, even 5nl is filled with (probably "bad overall," but still) grinders. Even if I was crushing I'd probably be making like $2 per hour lol. How long until I can move up and make minimum wage? A year? A year of studying my ass off? No thanks, I'm not going to sacrifice my last two years of university studying what I keep hearing is a dying game. Too many people are so far ahead of me that I would get crushed and have to move back down constantly and re-evaluate. There are just so many people that started during the boom and have been playing for 10 years and are sitting at 50-200nl that would eat me alive even if I did move up over the next couple years. I guess my point is, even at my peak potential I'd probably not be making much more than minimum wage in a year or two.

I just don't have the right personality for that honestly. I like progress, I like results, I like being able to know my results are a result of progress. With poker, I never know if I'm running good or bad, or if I just got lucky that a whale sat down but if it was all regs I'd be getting shit on.

I also have a hard time balancing it with life for some reason. I played both Chess and Starcraft at a high level, but with poker it feels like I could play for 24 hours straight. I neglect working out, hanging out with friends a bit. Poker is pretty consuming, at least for me (addictive?).

I'm taking a Math course this summer, and I started realizing I was doing more studying of poker than my University class. Pretty sure that's hugely -roi. Without substantial monetary potential (which IMO, is going to be in a permanent decrease as poker continues to dry up), I don't see how people stick with this game. The news about bots, the constant bad beats, variance, it's just rough. The botting is especially discouraging for me, because I imagine it'll end up like the hacker/cracker race where people race to develop more sophisticated bots while others race to stop it. Where does it end? Technology and botting is only getting stronger, which will only make it more difficult to prove when someone is botting as opposed to a real player playing close to optimal.

I think the dream about making it big in poker is horribly outdated and false. I think the only reason someone should begin playing that isn't already making a substantial income is because they enjoy poker as a game, for what it is (i.e. how many of us would play Call of Duty or something). The amount of time and energy it would take to become a competent player could be used in ways that would be much more profitable or +EV happiness.

This game isn't for me, thanks for those of you that have responded to me during my little journey here, and good luck to those of you that continue playing.

Thanks for reading! Bye everyone.