How long did it take to get to where you are now?

This could be read as "how long have you been playing?", but it's more along the lines of how long since you took a serious interest in chess? How hard did you have to work to get to your skill level? Did you ever consider saying "eh, I'm comfortable being 1400, or 1600, or 1700 etc." and not want to work more to improve, just keep yourself at a certain level?

30 years, very hard work. One doesn't become a good player by watching some youtube videos.

well, following the lines of OP exactly, I've played chess seriously (not since first rated tournament, but rather, point of serious investment) for about 3 years and I'm a 2100. I honestly didn't have to work too hard, I have quite a bit of natural talent, and I don't focus much on openings, meaning only experience and knowledge of endings is what it's taken for me to get here. I'd say I've felt comfortable at my rating before, but never have not wanted to work more to improve, either. This is kind of a confusing question, pardon me if I misinterpreted.

I read somewhere that we have about 8 years of chess progress IF you study seriously.
Been playing in cafes/tournaments for about 20 years. My 8 years of chess progress are long gone... sniff :_(
I know alot of people that play chess everyday 'just for fun' and don't study. But I never really understood this... if ya gonna do something everyday, why not get better at it?
Besides you appreciate the game more the more you understand it.

I am on a business trip right now will be home tomorrow afternoon and needed some sleep. BUT Just before I fell asleep I seen this and had to write a comment.

In November of 2015 I first started playing chess. (Before then I knew barely how to move the pieces and probably if you asked me before then to play a game I would not have known what stalemate was). It took me EXACTLY 1 Year 2 Months 21 Days to reach 2000 online probably 2000 online = 1600 real life rating. I put hours and hours of work into it each week and still do probably on average over the last year I have put 6 hours a day in it. That is averaging some days I don't play more than two or three games and others I play for 12 hours. This grind won't go for the rest of my life only until I reach 2000 in real life will it totally come to an end. Honestly I am disappointed in my progress its not good enough and I am not very good at this game YET.

Grind and grind you will become 2000 I guarantee it. Most don't put effort in and they wont be any higher rated than 1600.

My grind for chess includes:
40% playing (literally the best way to improve is play and analyse your games)
20% coaches (I hired two and probably a third will come very soon)
20% youtube videos (Chessclub of stl is my single favorite)
10% books (the only book I really like for chess is Silmans endgame course though I have about 20 chess books.)
10% tactics training and opening preparation (most of this can come from your games if you analyse correctly)

Questions or totally free coaching PM me. Its all free. I don't charge for my services but you better be ready to work and improve don't want to waste my time helping slackers improve slowly.

My experience as been an odd one: 4 years ago I started playing online and was constantly putting effort into improving. About 2 years ago I started playing in otb tournaments and I quickly achieved I 2100+ rating, but ever since last year I've been stuck. I don't like just staying put, but what can you do when your rating just won't seem to move? ;) In all seriousness though, I don't like hitting plateaus, and so to keep myself motivated I set high goals for myself, my current goal is to get a master title before I turn 18, whether or not that will happen still remains to be seen.

I suppose I should answer this myself. I haven't been paying long, around a month I think. I played a couple games causally three years ago, but I never really put an effort into learning the game. I treated it as a casual hobby, like how you might go fishing now and then but you don't take trips up into Canada for some serious musky angling.

I'm sticking to correspondence for now because I'm still learning to figure out what/why my opponent did or wants to do by moving a piece. What are my options in response, what's good what's bad? I'm not what I would consider "good" but...I don't think I'm bad either. Then again, I'll probably get killed in classical right now.

I don't think I'll ever be at a Master level, but I'll be happy if I can end up holding my own at a café or something like that.

Also best of luck to you, @SamuelIFowler

I have played chess for probably more than 10 years now, though I never really trained, I mostly just play since that's more fun and fun afterall is what playing games is all about. ;)
I read maybe 5 books or so though only if I really liked them, if they were both interesting chess wise and well written. Otherwise I don't see why I should put in the work, just to increase some meaningless skill. :D

@CafeMorphy What's wrong with just playing for fun? We all won't become chess professionals so there seems nothing wrong with that IMO.

@SamuelIFowler It's completely natural to hit plateaus or even lose some rating now and then, we're all only human afterall.
If you just keep going, somewhen the good results will come back at some point, it might just take a year or two.

@MoistvonLipwig I guess I see it this way,
chess is a competition against another person... so I'm imagining a bike race, my opponent does squats with heavy weights (studies) and I never go to the gym, my legs could be more powerful, but I say only race for fun... we race, he wins. Race again, he wins. Not so fun.

Some will have more powerful legs genetically without doing any work, but they will always be beaten by somebody with the same genetic gifts but also studies hard.
Like that saying goes "hard work beats talent every time, if talent don't work hard"

So... all this to say that I'm all about developing your potential. I think bettering yourself everyday (in all kinds of fields) is the key to life.

My chess experience has been very strange. I started playing seriously in the fall of 2015. And ever since then I've played hours upon hours of chess a day. And well....I haven't seen much improvement. When I started to play online, I had a 900 blitz rating. As you can see, it has improved about 1000 points since then. But online ratings don't mean anything. I'm still horrible at OTB, probably because I'm a horrible chess player in reality. But I still dream of getting better, yet I haven't put the work into it. When I mean work, I mean 100+ tactic puzzles EVERY a day, intensive study of openings, and reading books and such. I just play everyday, analyse every long time control game I play and do tactics every once in awhile. Yet I still wish to get a 2000 OTB rating. I feel at my rate I'll never get there. But I still have some hope. Chess is tough. Really tough.