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Why you will never be a progamer // Why you won't be successful
If you are active on TL you will notice that every now and then someone makes a thread stating that person's intention to "go pro". In it, that person will outline his plans (often in great detail) to work his way from league x to pro level, followed by posters ardently supporting or trying to dissuade.
Why is that? The reason is obvious: People, young male people in particular, tend to like the idea of doing something that they consider cool and hip for a living. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
You get paid for something you enjoy doing; get to hang out with a lot of cool people; travel the world (USA, Korea, Europe etc.); gain fans who cheer and support your ways etc.
To someone looking from the outside, the life of a progamer seems invitingly detached from the grey and boring everyday life most people face, to an extent that it almost seems like sort of a sweet escape from reality. We are being a led through a gorgeous gaming house with all kinds of cool features by a no less gorgeous woman employed in said house. We watch live on stream as  MMA's name is being chanted by passionate crowds. Successful pros aren't just gamers, but celebrated superstars with story lines and fan followings. We watch how unheard-of but hardworking no-names like TriMaster rise to fame and earn the respect of the community.
Professional SC2 is not being represented by seemingly incompetent politicians or corrupt corporate leaders, but likeable, strong and charismatic personalities one can easily empathize with such as  iNcontroL , as well as controversial but fascinating figures such as IdrA, NaNiwa or HuK.
Playing in a team provides a sense of mateship, which is rarely to be found in most professions. This is relevant, because oftentimes SC2 players feel isolated because their friends either don't share the passion (they think) they have or don't play themselves at all. As a pro you constantly find yourself in the company of like-minded people who you can train and discuss strategy with, who you don't have to explain why you're so dedicated to the game (like you would have to explain to your parents or girlfriend).
The list goes on and on but the essence here is that being a pro appears to be an occupation that is very rewarding and worthwhile.
At this point the question no longer appears to be 'why would you want to go pro' but rather 'why would you NOT want to go pro'. After all, it seems a really nice thing to be.
Let's go back to what I said earlier on. Basically, People tend to like the idea of doing something. This is important to note. Now, if liking the thought of going pro would be sufficient to enable one to actually become a pro, the world would be swarming with professional SC2 players.
But that is apparently not the case as the number of active pros is comparatively small. This suggests that it takes more than liking the thought of achieving something in order to actually achieve it. There has to be at least one more component.
My belief is that to be successful two factors have to be in alignment:
The logic factor and the innate factor.
The logic factor is easy to establish, because most people possess a functioning brain which enables one to conduct coherent thought processes which may lead one to the conclusion that going pro is a good and therefore desirable thing to do. The logic factor is the one that tells us that staying up late on school/work days for no good reason is a bad idea, but the innate factor is required for us to be able to act on that realization.
Basically our innate is responsible for almost all of our shortcomings: It is the reason we keep being inactive and lazy, make excuses, procrastinate and anything else that keeps us from achieving the things we want to achieve. Even if we logically conclude that we should abolish those behaviors in order to succeed, we will fail in the long run if we can't align our innate with our logic. Most people don't realize this, so they are prone to blame external circumstances.
In summary: Our logic tells us what we should do in order to succeed, while our innate determines what we are capable of doing.
A great example for an excellent logic - innate relationship is Day[9]. It is the reason why he is so successful, why he is an overachiever. It is what he means when he tells his viewers to "just do it". He can't really explain it himself, because it's just something that's very natural to him. For him it is very simple to establish general rules such as the "like - don't like" rule and stick to them.
This is why it is hard for him to understand when a viewer asks for some kind of magical solution to overcome his ladder anxiety.
For  Day[9] it has always been "just do it", that's the way he achieved everything he wanted to achieve so far. Of course this can also backfire, for instance when he almost had a burn-out and had to take a break, because he had "overcome" his innate he just kept on working intensively on his projects, exhausting his mind and his body.
Just image, if he had invested his energy into his progaming career instead of casting, he would certainly be "up there".
So the take-away here is that if you are able establish a perfect relationship between the two factors you can achieve, you can do anything, including becoming a progamer of course.
This, in my opinion, is the reason why the majority of players is not capable of going pro.
You are who you choose to be..
 
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Why most Westerners will never be successful progamers: they keep getting rolled by Koreans
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That's just the same problem with all cool jobs.
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You will never be anything more than you are now.
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Never aspire. Never want. Because you might fail. Got it, coach.
On a serious note, I know what you're trying to say, but maybe it's not the best way to say it. People will always do what they want, and if they really want it, they'll go to extreme lengths. If not, they fail. So it goes.
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Nice reading.
I will look more into it. Though I have never had the desire to be a programer, I do think this has some serious application in an awful lot of different fields. 
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This sort of behaviour you mentioned about people's outlining towards 'going pro' is later followed by some excuse of something outside their powers, or getting a girlfriend, job etc. This is pretty much the best indication of a person character, Day[9] is a good example as any. He often talks about how at University when he used to watch starcraft he wouldn't hide away in his room, or dodge it in conversation, rather, he'd leave his door open and invite people in, just strangers. He believes that if you love something you don't hide it, and more to the point, that if you want to do something you love, you find a way, whether is going to university at the same time, working while training etc.
People like this exist in other sports etc. You ever remember the adults who say things like 'Could've gone pro if I didn't hurt my X' or 'Could've gone pro if not for Y', 99% of people are full of shit and there is a reason they didn't do what they wanted to.
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Not sure if this applies to many other people but if you hang around TL for a bit and hear some first hand accounts of progaming like Rekrul's posts Progaming isn't a very glamorous lifestyle. Barely anyone actually makes it and only a small portion of those people receive any kind of mainstream appreciation. Thinking of a post of Rekrul which escapes me now but to him Pro BW involved lots of young guys sitting in a room for hours and hours everyday learning no life skills for barely any gain.
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On October 03 2011 11:49 wonderwall wrote:
Not sure if this applies to many other people but if you hang around TL for a bit and hear some first hand accounts of progaming like Rekrul's posts Progaming isn't a very glamorous lifestyle. Barely anyone actually makes it and only a small portion of those people receive any kind of mainstream appreciation. Thinking of a post of Rekrul which escapes me now but to him Pro BW involved lots of young guys sitting in a room for hours and hours everyday learning no life skills for barely any gain.
Anybody who doesn't know this from spending a week on Teamliquid has serious issues with foresight, just saying. Its way more visible nowadays (although players are also being treated better), its pretty hard to dodge talking about a progamers lifestyle.
The main issue is that people think that being a progamer is a decision you just make and it'll eventually happen. They then see what the Koreans do in their houses by playing all day, pretty much everyday and assume that thats how it works when you ARE pro. There is a disconnect there, they don't realise to become a pro you have to do that in the first place, and for quite a long time and practicing like that is second nature to alot of them. They don't need to announce that they're gonna be playing 8 hours a day for the next few months because its nothing new to them, they've done it for years and they never had the platform to talk about it.
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On October 03 2011 11:55 Atlare wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2011 11:49 wonderwall wrote:
Not sure if this applies to many other people but if you hang around TL for a bit and hear some first hand accounts of progaming like Rekrul's posts Progaming isn't a very glamorous lifestyle. Barely anyone actually makes it and only a small portion of those people receive any kind of mainstream appreciation. Thinking of a post of Rekrul which escapes me now but to him Pro BW involved lots of young guys sitting in a room for hours and hours everyday learning no life skills for barely any gain. Anybody who doesn't know this from spending a week on Teamliquid has serious issues with foresight, just saying. Its way more visible nowadays (although players are also being treated better), its pretty hard to dodge talking about a progamers lifestyle. The main issue is that people think that being a progamer is a decision you just make and it'll eventually happen. They then see what the Koreans do in their houses by playing all day, pretty much everyday and assume that thats how it works when you ARE pro. There is a disconnect there, they don't realise to become a pro you have to do that in the first place, and for quite a long time and practicing like that is second nature to alot of them. They don't need to announce that they're gonna be playing 8 hours a day for the next few months because its nothing new to them, they've done it for years and they never had the platform to talk about it.
I think what people focus on more are the couple dozen people who appear to have managed to make legit careers out of this whole thing, like Day9 and Tastosis, and not on the progamers' whose times have come and gone without any future stability.
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I don't even really play sc2 1v1 anymore, that doesn't stop me from watching all the pros play. Some people call that weird, but then go to any other sports event and ask how many people actually play, or the people watching it on T.V. Yeah its a fun game, but to me, its entertainment.
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At first i thought this blog would be really offensive and start a lot of people disagreeing. just to find out that this is actually a really good read. It's like procrastinating that you are gonna do something and that you can do it easily. Until you put yourself to do it, then its harder than it seems and you have to actually work for it.
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You know, this post struck home with me. ll my life I've been a chronic underachiever. I'm an intelligent person, most likely more intelligent than a large number of people (no, I'm not trying to say I'm some genius), and yet I have a terrible time trying to be motivated to do anything.
I pick up project after project only to lose motivation early on, and stop. I fail classes because I can't be assed to put in the extra effort to actually study once in a while (more often than not I go to tests with literally 0 minutes spent studying before hand).
My brain tells me that I need to stop being lazy and "just do it", but something inside me just gives up at the first sign of having to put in effort.
Hell, I don't even play 1v1s any more because I can't be assed to suck it up, play some games, and get over my ladder fear (which actually developed over time, because I didn't have any ladder fear when I first started playing.)
I still play 2v2s with a friend whenever possible, but his enthusiasm is really what gets me to play them, rather than the amount of fun I get from it (not to say that it's not a lot of fun, but the fun simply doesn't have any motivational value).
So yeah, I agree with what your saying 100%, and it doesn't just go for SC2. You've effectively broken down what the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful is (at least, all other things being equal).
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