Your story resonates strongly with me, and you bring up a great point about learning German through engaging in fun activities and socializing.

I'm somewhat torn on this myself as I believe there might be a "time and place" to write everything else off to bring an important journey to fruition. At least for a very short period of time.

But as you said, socialization time is valuable and there are other learning methods that would feel more balanced.

It's probably a great thing you exercised this extreme ambition muscle, and you can draw upon that strength at any point in the future. Great article!