I don't expect to be the best of the best, but obviously some people are thriving at these places. Why am I failing?
Also, this is more for maybe a professional therapist that for me but it looks to me that your definition of "failure" is unhealthy or too hard on yourself? sorry for the assumption but you are probably working on the area you want and like (technology) and being paid well for it. That puts you in the top 90% or whatever of people in <insert 1st world country> and 99.99% in the world (I know it's not consolation for feelings).
My big stressor is that I have hit the jackpot, and where do I go from here? So many people I know have settled into a comfortable groove, but work is by far the biggest stressor in my life, it's ruining my health, and I don't really have a path out. Continually churning applying for new jobs or dropping out of tech altogether don't seem very appealing.
I think there’s 2 things for you to think about. Firstly, comparing yourself to everyone else you will always find people who have done better in some area than you, that’s no failure on your part, that is the reality that every person exists in. It’s hard sometimes to appreciate yourself, I certainly have bouts of this.
Secondly, when you’re working in an organisation, you’re not solely responsible for making some project succeed, shipping some feature or whatever it is. If there are processes making progress very difficult, that’s not your fault. It’s easy to internally create all this pressure on yourself to meet your own standards, but sometimes you’re thrown into a situation where external factors out of your control prevent you from meeting what you yourself deem acceptable performance - that’s not on you. You can raise the issues that are blocking you, you can suggest ideas for improvements, but in a company, most of the time you cannot fix these things alone. I have found that my stress increases when I don’t understand what it is that is preventing me from performing, and when I put it all on myself to fix. Identifying the issues and absolving myself of the responsibility to fix all of them have been the best things I’ve done for my work stress levels.
― Desiderata
