How to enjoy chess after giving up on improving?

In my case, imnpulsive moves were the main problem with me. Think twice before moving each piece, play slower games, think if they can do a fork. Think if your Queen is in the same diagonal as your king. Try to think what's your opponent plan and which problems can your move bring to you. For me the key was thinking not about get fast into their castling and check mate fast, but creating a solid structure, go coordinating all pieces together and wait them for commit a error.

Anyways, you don't have to be good to enjoy chess. Neither am I, and  I enjoy it a lot. But I don't think 500 elo is the upper limit for anyone. 

Have you read any books yet? I got to 1000 by reading whatever beginner book they had in the library which was a Basman book and "your first move" by sokolsky.

I didn't pass 1800 OTB rating until AFTER I'd decided that I just didn't care anymore.

But how did you improve without the drive to be better? I don’t understand.

Improvement can be driven from either end... it can be goal-oriented, based in the future ("I want to earn an IM title!") or it can be based in the present moment ("this is fun!").

Once I stopped pushing myself for specific results, once I just relaxed and decided to have fun instead, I found that I could focus better and also come up with more original ideas.

Ah, I understand you from a different genre. As a musician, I studied theory (high school and college). Then one day i heard a more seasoned musician say “once i learned everything, i just chucked it and started playing music and couldn’t be happier.” I would add, and then he also made a living at it. I took the advice and found it to be true. (Minus the money)  Of course, knowing I’ll never be 1800 OTB, I’m going to trust your words. Thanks!

i played a few games.
It looks like we could have made some good moves with more time.
However, it still seems impossible to beat the 600ELO opponent.

Even if I analyze the game and try to understand the reason for the failure,
I can't seem to make use of it in actual combat.

Apparently 500 ELO is the upper limit of my progress, so
I give up on improving.

From now on, I will try to enjoy chess in ways other than improving.

I thought I was alone when I drink and chess. Cheers!

That's what I told myself when I was stuck for months at 1800 or so.

Then I found out that "I don't care anymore, I'll just have fun" was actually the START of my improvement. Two years later (IIRC) I won the championship of the Atlantic Provinces, and a year after that I passed 2000 rating (OTB, not Chess.com).