I wonder if you are applying some selective bias, with that one decision and with that former peer. Did many of your former classmates and peers go off and land

I wonder if you are applying some selective bias, with that one decision and with that former peer. Did many of your former classmates and peers go off and land dazzling career positions? I doubt it. You probably made a ton of good decisions that you are discounting. A professional would probably apply some CBT techniques to get you thinking about the problem from a different perspective. I am a long time IC and have similar negative thoughts about, should be higher up the food chain, etc., and I find that those CBT techniques help.