Hello to the Codeforces community. I've been thinking if I should try to become red, since it would advance the competitive programming level in my country, besides improving my programming skills. However, there are other things I could do with the time and energy that training requires, like developing real applications or doing research. For red coders reading this, what your motivations were for becoming red? If you could return back in time, would you use your time on CP or on something else?

Thanks for reading ;-)