I played CS pretty intensively in my early twenties(2001-2004) when I was in medical school. Back in the days, I would studied past midnight every night then went to a net cafe near the campus to play CS LAN game for an hour before going to bed. I got pretty good at it, outplayed all my friends and usually top the scoreboard shortly after joining a game. I did a tryout and got accepted into the best esport team in the city, almost at the same time I got accepted into Ophthalmology program. So at one point, I was standing at the crossroad between being a pro-gamer or being an eye doctor. I chose to be an eye doctor then things get busy quickly, the game of CS gradually faded away from my life.
And I am 48-yo dad, married with 3 kids, a practicing eye surgeon. Recently came across CS2, I was happily surprised that after 25 years, the game is still hugely popular, the core of the gameplay was essentially unchanged. I wanted to get back to the game and see if I still have it. I quickly relearned the modern PC hardware, built a first gaming pc for myself in 20 years, bought the best peripherals money can buy. After playing it daily for a few weeks, it’s pretty clear that I have long passed my prime, but I am comfortably an above-average causal player, frequently reaching top-3 on online causal and dearhmatch games, it feels great to able to enjoy the same game I played enthusiastically 25 years ago, making me feel young again.