What usually happens when you are good at something is that you start being the best in your environment and that encourages you, for example you are the best i

What usually happens when you are good at something is that you start being the best in your environment and that encourages you, for example you are the best in Math or playing football in your school. Then you go to compete with the best of other schools and it becomes harder. Then you go to compete with the best your country and you meet people that are amazing. Then you see people around the world that run circles around you. And even if you manage to compete in the world's league, you start competing against the best in History, in Math you will compete with Newton and Leibniz, Gauss or Euler. Even if you are the best mathematician of your time, you are insignificant against them. The advantage people have today is tools like computers and Internet that gives you and advantage over people of the past, but also gives you a disadvantage: It gives you access to the best works of humanity while also increasing distractions by levels of magnitude. It gives you computational power people in the past could only dream about, but uses that to power games, sexual scams and casinos in order to divert your attention and resources. Today there are more opportunities than ever to create something of value for Humanity, but doing it is as hard as always has been. And even "hard" work does not guarantee you anything. If you sacrifice a lot in order to create something worth it, maybe you will get rewarded, but it is not guarantied. I prefer to study how to work smart instead of hard, but that process in itself is hard work.