Hii everyone,

I am posting this from an alternate account because I don't really want people to track this to the real me. This post is a way of venting something that I have been feeling about competitive programming for a very long time.

I have been in and out of CP for 5 years now, back when I was in college. I started with Hackerrank and eventually heard about CF from friends. I actually found this very fascinating as I was always interested in mathematics and puzzle sort of things. But then I was not getting better — I was stuck in the 900–1000 range. There were times when I could not even crack A of the contest, and I couldn't handle the fact that I maybe was not smart, and then I gave up CP for like 1.5 years. I would maybe solve a problem here and there, but never regularly.

Then later on I actually got a job as a DSA trainer, and I taught DSA for almost 1.5 years, and I taught it well — people really responded well to my teaching. My students also included CF specialists, people who cracked Google interviews, etc., and I felt like maybe now I could get back and finally become better at CP. I watched YouTube videos, created notes, everything that I felt was needed. So I again hopped back and started doing it again, and after 20 contests I barely touched pupil, and currently my rank is below 1000. In yesterday's contest I could not even solve A, and previous to that contest I wasn't able to solve B.

Tbh, at this point of my life CF does nothing for me in terms of my career and probably is a waste of time for me, but I still cannot help letting go of it from my life. It may not be a big deal for a lot of you, and maybe it should not be that big of a deal for me as well — like nobody is asking me for my CF rating lol. My friends have already stopped, and yet I still cannot just accept the fact that I might just not be as smart.

Thanks for reading! would love to hear your thoughts on this, any advice is welcome!