I have always been an avid gamer from the commodore to the nes to the pc I have played on all of them. So when I first got introduced to the concept of online gaming I was obviously very interested and excited.
I played a lot of Counter-Strike from the start, often 7 to 8 hours a day. I quickly got sort of good and had some local fame. From here I got lucky and came into contact with several people which gave me a whole range of opportunities.
It started with a Belgian player named Slikatel inviting me to Multiplayer Madness, which was the largest Belgian LAN party. We easily won the tournament and my first LAN was a fact. Later on my former teammate Pesticide invited me to help out at CPL Europe Holland which was my first taste as an organiser or admin within eSports. At CPL Europe I met Ralf Reichert who gave me a lot of great opportunities within SK together with Andreas and Alex. While in SK I got more into the journalism and organising part of eSports as I visited events and ran SK Insider while also helping out with the internal workings of SK. At ESWC 2004 I met Sebastian Weisshaar who later on offered me a real job at Turtle Entertainment, the parent company of ESL. Thanks to the work experience I gained at Turtle Entertainment I was able to find a job as an IT consultant back home in Belgium.

The above is a short description of my history as I see it. If you look at the above and see all the connections you would be right in saying that thanks to eSports I am where I am today. But the above spans over about 8 years or so, which means it took quite a long time for me to find a steady job and live a "normal" life like other people would do who study and find a job.
This is what got me thinking, was it all worth it? I have been to some great places and met some fantastic people from all over the world but at the same time I often neglected my childhood friends because I had to practice or travel to places. Of course my studies also suffered greatly from my time invested into eSports but if I'm honest I think I would have just wasted that time on something other than my studies anyway.

Overall I should be thankful for having the experiences I had and be greatful that it helped me become who I am today but still I can't help but wonder was it all worth it, wasn't there a shortcut I could have taken if I hadn't been sucked into the world of eSports?