You know, we are very similar. I live in Eastern Europe too and my goal is to qualify for IOI.
I started my journey 6 months ago and I’ve been training really hard, solving 4-6 hours a day. I don’t know if I can pull it off, because in my country contestants are pretty advanced and I only started not a long time ago. I have tried IATI qualifications this year but I wasn’t even able to qualify among 16
But still, even if I won’t be able to qualify for IOI or some other international olympiads, there is also ICPC, still a lot of fun in the future.
But I do CP because it’s really fun, and, well, I have nothing more to do. Competitive programming is just like a video game: you can’t solve a problem then you must get some score points in this particular area (knowledge) to be able to surpass yourself. And also you learn DSA so that during the competition you got some aces up your sleeve. And just the feeling of competition, of getting the AC in the last couple of minutes - it’s beautiful.
So I guess, I will stick to it for some time as I am really motivated to continue. Who knows what will happen in a year? Will I be able to qualify for IOI or will I be able to get 6-7*? Time will show. But what for sure, is that I am not wasting my time. (I would waste it on video games anyway)
Btw, I don’t reallly like CodeForces for some reason, so I only solve here. And I like to solve problems gradually, so I just solve every single problem here on the website from difficulty 0.