When I was a teenager, I promised myself that I would never be satisfied with myself or my achievements.[1] That’s simply because I wanted to optimize, not satisfice. I imagine his feelings were coming from a similar place… and that he would probably feel disgusted by the idea that he might ever be “good enough”.
That’s not to say there aren’t unhealthy and healthy ways to be like this; being in a pit like that is a clear failure mode. But it’s not a fundamentally miserable mode like you seem to imagine.
When I was a teenager, I promised myself that I would never be satisfied with myself or my achievements.[1] That’s simply because I wanted to optimize, not satisfice. I imagine his feelings were coming from a similar place… and that he would probably feel disgusted by the idea that he might ever be “good enough”.
That’s not to say there aren’t unhealthy and healthy ways to be like this; being in a pit like that is a clear failure mode. But it’s not a fundamentally miserable mode like you seem to imagine.
Unfortunately this was not enough to instill a consistent drive to actually work on becoming better and doing more… still working on it.
This sounds like self-harm to me.