I think we differ in what we seek from the piano, and that's okay. I do want to play for others, but not to the scale of a professional. And I also want to improve my technique so I can access the higher difficulty pieces. The harder pieces just happen to be the pieces of music that I enjoy listening to the most, and I just want to be able to play my favorite pieces in addition to listening to a professional recording. That's where my issue comes in. I never actually attempt my favorite pieces if I don't think I can manage learning them within a reasonable time frame, but that bugs me because I want to learn them so badly. And when it comes to making sure that everything about a piece is done well, I will learn it until I can get an acceptable recording (my standards aren't high, but not too low either). I should 100% play a lot more easier pieces though, but I haven't been doing that much recently, most of the pieces I play right now are upper intermediate level or higher. Maybe that's why I'm losing motivation.