Help a noob

I just started playing CK3, and while I do love deep strategy games and im sure it gets better longer I play it im struggling with the for me personaly confusing game start. So what confuses me is:

I start my game by making my own adventurer, I spend XY time creating my main character just for him to spend 2/3 of his life doing schemes for +-50 gold? What I mean is that at the start I need atleast 10 keys for a scheme to get even (if) 80% of possibility to succeed (which I weirdly fail often then succeed) and each key takes 40-60 days so I basically spend 1-2 years a scheme to get some handful of gold or prestige or whatever, so by the time I manage to earn some funds and even think about trying to be a mercenary my main character is 50+ and the rest of the game will depend on my heirs. So whats the point of having a huge access of customizations for your main character if he basically just plays out the boring part? Also is there anything else you can do while waiting for a scheme to finish or are you supposed to just sit out and fast forward for a year?

To add, in no way am I bashing the game im just wondering if I got something wrong or is it just the way its supposed to be played.