languageoclock:

I have lived in Australia all my life and I only speak English at home.

I did Mandarin for 5 years at school, originally because it was compulsory, but I continued because I initially enjoyed it. There are a lot of native Chinese speakers in Australia and their language features all over the country.
When I was younger and I heard someone speaking Chinese at the shops I would try talking to them, even though I only knew about 10 sentences at that point. People though it was fantastic to see a western person trying to speak their language with so much enthusiasm. I sometimes got free food because of it. I made friends. It was fun. It was useful. I went to China in 2013 and spent a week going to a school there. I made lots of friends. It was fun. It was useful. I continued to learn Chinese at school and I really tried to interact with the Chinese kids in my class but they pushed me away because I was white, far from fluent in their language, and they found me annoying. It was easier to talk to them in English. I didn’t use the language outside of classes because I felt there wasn’t any need for me to. It wasn’t fun anymore. It stopped being useful. I stopped learning Chinese.

After coming back from China, I saw a German YouTube video that didn’t have any English subtitles. To be perfectly honest, I myself wasn’t particularly fond of the sound at first. But the video looked very funny. I started learning German.
There are very few native German speakers in Australia and their language is not often represented here.
German speakers approached me on the Internet, curious as to why I was learning their language. My German was understandably very bad when I first started. It was still very bad, even an entire year later. But I made friends. I began to understand more and more of the YouTube video. It was fun. It was useful. Two years later I could almost understand the entire video. I had made more friends than I could count on all my fingers and toes. I could listen to music in German and understand all the lyrics without having to look them up. I’ve fallen in love with the language. It was fun. It was useful. And it continues to be.

Six months later I started learning Norwegian because I like the way the language sounds and I find the close relationship between it and the other two languages I know fascinating.
There are hardly any native Norwegian speakers in Australia and the language has next to no representation anywhere on the entire continent.
Norwegian speakers have begun to approach me on the Internet. My Norwegian is understandably still very bad at the moment, but I’m going to improve. I’m learning a little bit more every day and my ability to understand it is on the increase. I’m getting a sense of achievement from it. It’s fun. It’s useful.

I don’t learn languages because I think they will be practical in my real life or that I will be able to use them to make more money in Australia. I learn them because it’s fun for me, it challenges me, and it makes me happy, and I think it’s important that I’m happy. It’s useful.

Don’t let anyone tell you the language you’re leaning is useless. Don’t let anyone tell you that you should pick a different language to the one you’re in love with because it’s “more useful”.
If it’s fun, it’s useful.
Go have fun!