I would have agreed with the article below for a long time. There's probably quite a few of the "smartest kids" who are dumb enough to chase achievement their whole lives. Particularly if you keep dangling that carrot somewhere not quite so ridiculously within reach.
Of course, if I hadn't had so much time to daydream during class, maybe I wouldn't have meandered to the inevitable conclusion that, ultimately, humanity is a worthless flash in the pan and by extension that any individual effort is, at any logical scale, meaningless.
Perhaps I would be trying in vain to save, or at least help humanity.
Sounds like a hopeless business at best and at worst a lot of poorly compensated work.
In high school, our AP physics teacher asked each of us what we wanted to be. When my turn came, I said "beach bum." My co-valedictorian, who at that time definitely fell into the achievement chaser category, whipped around and asked me why I didn't want to use my brain to help other people. My response to that question remains unchanged:
<Yawn>
Alas, the answer to what I want to be has changed slightly: "mountain bum."
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