How you know you’re driven by the opinions of others
These are all zero-sum games, and aren’t worth playing with this one life you have. Discard the obsession with metrics. Bury the desire to emulate what works for others. Ignore all that, and be moved by your own curiosities, interests, and pursuits. - Pursue Mastery, Not Status
If envy is a recurring problem for you, that means you’re always gauging your progress in relation to the advertised positions of others.
If you use a metric to gauge what you work on next, then you’re allowing the validation of others to dictate your intellectual interests.
If you base the quality of your work on its performance — and not how you felt while creating it — then you will never be confident in your own judgment.
That last paragraph is worth repeating. Zero-sum games aren’t it. You might as well go full send with the one life we have.