From my experience as a climber[1], it has to do with my own comfort level, and feeling the need to compare myself to others. When I judged others as n00bs, or

From my experience as a climber[1], it has to do with my own comfort level, and feeling the need to compare myself to others. When I judged others as n00bs, or weaker than I was, it was done mostly to make myself feel better about myself. I came to conclusions that rather than comparing myself to people who couldn't climb as hard (and being motivated to remain "better" than them), it was more beneficial (both for my motivation and my attitude) to rather compare myself to people better. I had no delusions of being better than these folks, and it helped me understand my own weaknesses. So, humility matters, because I know I likely won't climb 8b without ditching my job. I can push myself, but it's done from the perspective of "wow, I have so much room to improve" rather than "I need to be stronger than all these weaker people." [1] I am probably an "above average" climber, having done 7c+ problems here in the States.