Did I waste years learning my target language?

Only 2 more weeks until I hit my 4 and a half year streak on Anki and I'm sitting here doubting the effort I've put into my language. I came back from my 2nd trip to Japan a few weeks ago and instead of giving more motivation to keep going it sapped it right out of me.

When I was there I was pretending what it would be like to live there and a bunch of self-doubting thoughts keep emerging:

  • I make more money in my home country than I ever would in Japan (even if the Yen wasn't weak and adjusted for cost of living). Nevermind the tax-benefited retirement funds I'd be missing out on abroad as a US citizen. Why would I want to move to Japan?
  • I'd be forced to live in an apartment within in the city since I work in software, additionally it seems like a gamble if your job will has a normal work-life balance. Why would I want to move to Japan?
  • I don't even consume Japanese media or culture and haven't cared for years. Why would I want to move to Japan?

As I was ruminating though these thoughts I came to the realization that I might have just wasted 6 years of my life chasing something that I don't really want, but I thought I wanted.

When I initially got into the language I wanted to learn it because a bunch of my childhood interests revolved around Japan. As a teenager I thought it'd be cool to live there and kept up with the media. During college when I had no money I thought, "Why not? I'll move abroad, I have nothing to lose". Now, after a few years of graduation and getting a taste of working in the US as a software developer, time has eroded my reasons to move abroad. Especially since lately it looks like Japan is only getting worse.

Now I'm sitting here stuck in place as to what to do. I still do Anki everyday closing the gap between my 10k known out of 14k total words, but I often ask myself why. I'm only doing it at this point to learn the last words I have yet to do and keep up my streak until some arbitrary number. I honestly don't know what to do at this point, it's like a mini-life crisis since I spent so much of my life invested in the language.

Has anyone else had trouble dropping a language they put so much time into?