I used to be a lot like that. But then somehow I slipped out of the cycle and started being good at things, and I've been truly consistently happy and working h

I used to be a lot like that. But then somehow I slipped out of the cycle and started being good at things, and I've been truly consistently happy and working hard on fun projects for the past 3ish years (I'm 22 now). I saw some people asking others to share their stories, so I thought I would offer up my own life as an example. It's just a data point, take from it what you will. When I started high school I thought I wasn't good at anything. I was pretty rebellious and took up smoking / drinking at a young age. Then I started debating and found out I was pretty good at that, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of my slump. Turns out, winning debates is only cool to other debaters. I remember riding the bus full of idiots to school, listening to Modest Mouse on my first iPod, just wondering why life generally sucked. When I went to college I tried to be one of those thoughtful types. My subconscious goal was to make everyone think I was tormented by deep thoughts. It was my way of trying to get people to like me and to feel special. (I was not conscious of this at the time). I smoked cigarettes a lot, became a vegetarian, and thought about how nothing matters. Reading Nietzsche for fun made me feel profound, and truly I learned a lot from it, but if I'm honest with myself I did it because I wanted people to respect me. That's what I was missing in my life, what made me feel so bad for so long. I just didn't feel respected. I didn't think people took me seriously enough. I quit college debate, joined another student organization and became known as a friendly and smart guy there. Almost overnight everything got better. As I started getting happier and more respected by my peers, I also started becoming more ambitious. I dreamed about becoming president one day, about starting massive companies, about changing history. That was about 3 years ago, and I've been mostly happy since that point in my life. Gradually I shed my old bad habits, like smoking, and picked up some good ones, like eating healthier and exercising. I no longer want people to think of me as someone who is tormented by his genius. I realized that people really don't relate to or respond well to that. I still want to be respected, but now I'm capable of getting respect because I learned the first step is to be a warm person towards others - not by trying to project any sort of image. The problem is that we all project an image whether we want to or not, so we have a tendency to try and control it. I've found that I'm happiest and I feel most respected when I'm focusing on the matter at hand rather than myself. Whether it's designing an interface (my job) or talking to a friend, I find I am happiest when I'm not thinking about myself. Hope this helps somebody who's feeling like I felt 4 years ago.