[DogOnTheWeb]

I think this is the better approach. OP’s take feels almost nihilistic in disregarding any urge to “catch up” with peers or role models.

We can acknowledge that others have gone further, faster in an area and use that as motivation without falling into despair.

At the same time, life is about managing trade offs across many aspects. Often investing in one area means taking from another, and just because someone is further in one area, doesn’t mean their whole life is richer.

[biren34]

Yeah, the fact is other people are often more talented, any maybe worse, even if other people aren't more talented, you just screw stuff up--often a lot.

It's part of life and putting your head in the sand about is just weak. If you could have been farther--and worst case the only reason you aren't is because of mistakes you knew better than to make--face it, accept it, forgive yourself and use the experience to keep your head on straight going forward. It's all you can do anyway.

As for tactics, sometimes it might help if you imagine it was someone else who screwed up the way you did and consider how you'd treat/view them. (For those of us with really super-critical inner voices, this can help us get in touch with our compassion.) Like all these kinds of things, YMMV.

[Noos]

No, despair often comes anyways. Those high achievers simply don't just achieve; in the process, they often define what "average" means in something.

You see it in multiplayer videogames for example. The further, faster players often end up skewing the whole competitive curve, to where ranking players are a lot better on the whole compared to when the game started, but worse off by the metrics. A silver player now is easily equal to a gold player at launch.

You can spend all this effort on a skill treadmill spending more and more effort to remain the same, only to fall off of it. High achievers are far too efficient and things tend to optimize way too much over time to try and play the competitive game.

I think you can also see this in things like children's sports; the people who turn little league into portfolio activities end up raising the cost for everyone, who then abandons the sport.

This is something I am wrestling with a lot in my life, and I think a lot of competitive burnout happens due to this. I can try to be my best self, but the deep end of the pool is so deep that it gets harder to not seek shallower and shallower water till I get out or drown.

[rrherr]

“OP’s take feels almost nihilistic”

OP: “So turn your eyes forward and focus on what you can change: the future.”