The same way you deal with getting older in any other profession, you learn to accept that there will always be people better, faster, and younger than you, emb

The same way you deal with getting older in any other profession, you learn to accept that there will always be people better, faster, and younger than you, embrace the fact that you suck, but still persevere in pushing forward at your own best pace. You strip away the pride (i.e. the feeling that you somehow deserve / need to win, to be the next big thing, to change the world, to be loved / respected by everyone, to do better than your old high school classmates, and to do it all in your teens and twenties) that covers the youthfully inexperienced. And you accept that the most you can do is put yourself on the path that you can enjoy and that you hope is right and commit to walking down it clad in nothing more than simple stupid faith that eventually you can get it to work. Non-purple TL;DR: I deal with it by abandoning any sense of pride / shame I might've had.