You are a brave person since C++ is one of the hardest language to learn. I started with plain old C which is equally hard. Ofcourse at the time I did not know this. The reason many people consider C/C++ hard is because they are hardware languages. When you write C/C++ code you are usually getting very close to the hardware level. The other two lower levels are assembly and toggling bits directly by jumping some wires. The advantage of C++ is that you will get the most control with the best performance. The disadvantage is that you have to deal with a lot of things yourself. For example you are responsible for not going out of range when using an array or you have to reclaim memory if you allocate it dynamically. Once you start studying it you will see what I mean. Other languages like Java, python, C# and others take care of the grunt work for you and yet provide equal of comparable power. Ok, not the same power but in reality, for most thing most people do speed is usually not an issue.
My advice to you is instead of choosing a language to learn, instead start with a project. For example, what woud you like to do. Do you want to create web pages? Do you want to make a video game for a console? Maybe you just want to create some text parsing program. Maybe all you want is to learn how to program a robot. Once you define your project then choose a platform. For example if you want to make neat web pages then you are looking at javascript and html. However, if you are looking into video games then you are looking at C++ or maybe even C# if you want to program the BOX 360. If you want to parse text like for example, you have a lot of data and you just want to print out only the things you need or organized that data in a human readable format then perl is your friend. Then a gain python can do it too.
The thing is that language is more often that not chosen by the problem or task. If you buy a device then the manufacturer will provide you with some sort of language they use. Usually not the one you want or would like to use. Jobs are the same one guys chooses the language and the rest get stuck with it.
The last thing I will say is that it is easier and more fun to learn a programing language if you have a project in mind because you will see your progress as you learn new things. Also, the language per se is not so important as learning how to program in general. Just like what brand hammer you use is not as important as knowing how to build the house.
P.S. you do not need to take a programing course but, it does help. I have self taugh myself C/C++, python, actionscript and perl. Java I learn most of it myself but I also took a course in college which is good because many other courses I took required it. Please oh please learn how to organized your code and use comments. Proper indentation and other programing standards to make your code readable.