Generally, nothing that's not fun is worth pursuing. And, if something isn't fun, it's also very likely it is something that will never be excelled in.
If you play only for the rating and your rating isn't going anywhere, then maybe it is time to leave chess behind. If, however, you can forget about ratings and get back to the simple joy of the game, then maybe it's worth staying with a slightly adjusted perspective. Good luck either way. 
I'm 64. I didn't pass 2000 until I was in my early 60s.
Maybe you just haven't peaked yet?
You're just a late blueemuer.
remember kids, if you're mad about how bad you are....
Think about me and ill guarantee you'll feel better
Been there done that
Been playing since 1975. Rating is 900 ish. Don't care. Just enjoy playing.
For most of us, chess should be about the joy of playing the game and not the numbers. Rating aside, do you enjoy playing chess? That's the question to pose to yourself.
However, I recognize the value in ratings as a motivator to improve and as part of the enjoyment (and pain) of playing.
How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points?
Improvement comes from study, not from playing.
Playing is primarily to practice what you've studied.
If you only play, without reviewing, analyzing, or studying, then you're not making any serious effort to improve.
You might want to improve, and you might hope to improve, and you might even think you're improving . . . but unless you're actually putting in the work to learn the game at a higher level, you'll just be doing the same thing every game: trying to figure out your moves over the board, without any sturdy foundation of knowledge to draw upon.
I've really just had it with this game. It's time to give it up entirely.
I'm nearing 50 years old. I've known how to play since I was 10, and I've played various accounts online first in Yahoo then on Chess.com for the past decade. I'll bet I've played 15,000 games in that time. And I've never improved much beyond 1200 in any category. I didn't take the time to sit down and read "Reassess Your Chess" or "Silman's Complete Endgame Course." I don't have the patience, and I had other things to do, like raise two children, build a happy marriage, make sure I was paying my mortgage, and get eight hours sleep a night.
How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points? I'm a relatively intelligent person in most regards. I can read Aristotle, do some calculus, write essays on political theory for peer-reviewed journals, and even read a little Latin. I know how to teach a class of teenagers how to improve their reading and writing skills. I can read medical journals. But I can't seem to improve my chess game.
I wish I would have gotten a good coach when I was younger. Maybe he or she could have forced me to sit down and read through books by grandmasters or just spend more time thinking through opening and middle-game patterns while correcting my errors. Heck, I could have hired such a coach as an adult. But instead, I chose the road of playing 5-minute games ad nauseum without ever really analyzing them afterwards.
It's ridiculous to be frustrated and hate the game because I'm not good enough when I never put the right effort in to learn. How irrational is it to get so angry when I lose decisively to a player 100 or 200 points below my already dismal rating?
It's time to walk away. I'll replace those hours wasted with something more valuable to me. Maybe I can spend more time with my kids. Maybe I can finally read The Illiad or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Maybe I can go make myself useful by volunteering at the local homeless shelter.
I have simply to finish one last daily game. I'm certain to lose. That would be an appropriate ending to an utterly banal and pointless waste of my time.
If you wanna improve, then you gotta put the time to study, No criticism here *holds hands up* but in the end, maybe your start in chess wasn't as good as others in the end... 😞
Welp, sadly this is true for @GuavaShoe
I've really just had it with this game. It's time to give it up entirely.
I'm nearing 50 years old. I've known how to play since I was 10, and I've played various accounts online first in Yahoo then on Chess.com for the past decade. I'll bet I've played 15,000 games in that time. And I've never improved much beyond 1200 in any category. I didn't take the time to sit down and read "Reassess Your Chess" or "Silman's Complete Endgame Course." I don't have the patience, and I had other things to do, like raise two children, build a happy marriage, make sure I was paying my mortgage, and get eight hours sleep a night.
How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points? I'm a relatively intelligent person in most regards. I can read Aristotle, do some calculus, write essays on political theory for peer-reviewed journals, and even read a little Latin. I know how to teach a class of teenagers how to improve their reading and writing skills. I can read medical journals. But I can't seem to improve my chess game.
I wish I would have gotten a good coach when I was younger. Maybe he or she could have forced me to sit down and read through books by grandmasters or just spend more time thinking through opening and middle-game patterns while correcting my errors. Heck, I could have hired such a coach as an adult. But instead, I chose the road of playing 5-minute games ad nauseum without ever really analyzing them afterwards.
It's ridiculous to be frustrated and hate the game because I'm not good enough when I never put the right effort in to learn. How irrational is it to get so angry when I lose decisively to a player 100 or 200 points below my already dismal rating?
It's time to walk away. I'll replace those hours wasted with something more valuable to me. Maybe I can spend more time with my kids. Maybe I can finally read The Illiad or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Maybe I can go make myself useful by volunteering at the local homeless shelter.
I have simply to finish one last daily game. I'm certain to lose. That would be an appropriate ending to an utterly banal and pointless waste of my time.
lmao he lost
I've really just had it with this game. It's time to give it up entirely.
I'm nearing 50 years old. I've known how to play since I was 10, and I've played various accounts online first in Yahoo then on Chess.com for the past decade. I'll bet I've played 15,000 games in that time. And I've never improved much beyond 1200 in any category. I didn't take the time to sit down and read "Reassess Your Chess" or "Silman's Complete Endgame Course." I don't have the patience, and I had other things to do, like raise two children, build a happy marriage, make sure I was paying my mortgage, and get eight hours sleep a night. Well, there you have it: you saw nothing valuable in chess materials to help improve your game; because that's the kind of worth you put on it. You single-handedly created Chess into the kind of game that would eventually become boring for you; because that was the attitude you had of it, to begin with.
How utterly sad is it though that I could play 15,000 games and never improve even 100 points? I'm a relatively intelligent person in most regards. I can read Aristotle, do some calculus, write essays on political theory for peer-reviewed journals, and even read a little Latin. I know how to teach a class of teenagers how to improve their reading and writing skills. I can read medical journals. But I can't seem to improve my chess game. Heh...HEH...
I wish I would have gotten a good coach when I was younger. Maybe he or she could have forced me to sit down and read through books by grandmasters or just spend more time thinking through opening and middle-game patterns while correcting my errors. Heck, I could have hired such a coach as an adult. But instead, I chose the road of playing 5-minute games ad nauseum without ever really analyzing them afterwards.
It's ridiculous to be frustrated and hate the game because I'm not good enough when I never put the right effort in to learn. How irrational is it to get so angry when I lose decisively to a player 100 or 200 points below my already dismal rating? Who else are you to be "angry at" but yourself? But, I seem to get that that's what you were trying to say.
It's time to walk away. I'll replace those hours wasted with something more valuable to me. Maybe I can spend more time with my kids. Maybe I can finally read The Illiad or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Maybe I can go make myself useful by volunteering at the local homeless shelter. You can and should have been doing those things while you also enjoyed learning about chess. Life is simply what you make of it to be.
I have simply to finish one last daily game. I'm certain to lose. That would be an appropriate ending to an utterly banal and pointless waste of my time. I'm sorry you feel that way. I really am. I would like to think that, of the 1000+ years of chess's existence, the game will not end with people disappointingly quitting it because they simply got board, er, bored of it in their lives.
It's particularly why I became a Chess game inventor; having more than 6 finished variants at this point, working on a 7th.
But, hey, don't take my word for it. That's just me.
Please don't stop playing chess. My father really loved playing chess and when I was young he would bring me gifts just to let him teach me how to play chess. I'm his only child, and probably he would be happier if I have a brother whom he can relay the torch. I was never really interested with it and I never absorbed much the things that he taught me. But now that he passed away, I miss the times when we were playing chess and everytime I play a game, I feel that he's being proud of me (he wouldn't really expect to win, lol). Although chess was just his past-time, he was so passionate in teaching me and passing his talents to me. I now understand that chess was a part of him, and now I deeply regret how I took it for granted.
I'm sure your kids are proud that their father is a chess enthusiast. And probably they will really love learning it from you. You can volunteer in your local homeless shelter and teach the children there how to play chess, and you may save them from turning to illegal drugs or violent games.
Applaud your decision. There is much more to life than chess. 
👏👍
I'm 64. I didn't pass 2000 until I was in my early 60s.
Maybe you just haven't peaked yet?
That's inspiring! I would love to pass 2000. May I ask how you got there?
Never had a trainer. But if I had to recommend a couple of chess books that changed my way of looking at the game, they would be "My System" by Nimzovich and (especially) "Pawn Power in Chess" by Kmoch.
Other than that... play slow games. Analyze them afterward. Study games by the old masters (from before the computer era). Study tactics, model mates and typical endgames. Learn the typical central Pawn formations and their effect on middle-game planning.
Players nowadays spend far too much effort memorizing openings, when middle-games and endgames would benefit them more.