Perl is a tool for people tired of doing things in asinine & limiting ways.

It's hard to learn if you don't have at least some experience with getting 
work done or solving problems with less appropriate tools.

Ideally, you'd be a former C programmer

Minimally, you could be a win32 batch file writer.

More importantly, you need problems that could be better solved with a heavy 
weight scripting language bursting with creative possibilities rather than 
some silly minimalist engine with the most narrow of scopes predetermined by 
others who think they know what the real world is like.

I too wanted to learn Perl when I first entered the I.T. field, but I was 
discouraged.  Not just by the learning curve, but the audience Perl was 
directed to:  Seasoned admins and power users who knew what they needed to do

Vague ideas about what perl can do didn't give me the Oomph I needed to learn 
and be productive in it.

But after a year of pissy batch files, fussy WSH, and, God help me, Send-keys  
I was able to sit my arse down and plow through the Llama book, and start being 
productive.

Hang in there.