[Ethee]

This kind of self meta-analysis can be amusing to think about sometimes, but I think more often than not it's actually harmful to your own sense of progress or worth. In my opinion the two sides of this coin that are hard to reconcile are: "You shouldn't limit your own ability" and "It's important to be realistic". Comparing yourself to those around you is human nature, but here you're asking us to compare ourselves to what we imagine is the peak of ourselves in order to stay realistic. I guarantee you that the people around you who are actually making forward progress haven't given a single thought to whether or not they've "peaked".

[Nevermark]

I think an important skill is to comfortably see things in completely different ways, and leverage each view for how it helps.

Both views are simplified models, there is no conflict. Non-parallel lines are not a contradiction. For best navigation, triangulate. In a high N-dimensional nonlinear situation, accumulate lines/models/viewpoints.