I've accomplished what I've always wanted personally and professionally but I don't think I deserve any of it
I don’t really know how to explain this without sounding like an ungrateful piece of shit and pretentious douche, but here goes.
Professionally and personally, I’ve accomplished almost everything I used to dream about when I was younger but it all feels nothing to me now. I work as a quant at a prop trading firm an industry that, especially in India is gatekept for IITians and people with elite pedigrees. Meanwhile, I failed JEE multiple times. I still remember what that did to my confidence , back then that was the moment I swore that I would never let myself feel as defeated and humiliated as I did back then
through years of grinding, I ended up working across every kind of niche startup/workplace you can think of robotics, AI research, finance, academia. I’ve seen enough professionally where I genuinely look around and think: “been there, done that.”
have also mentored god knows how many kids get into amazing startups to the point I still get thank you messages 2 years later
outside of work I play guitar and am a niche micro internet celebrity , have an amazing girlfriend. who is beautiful, sweet , caring, emotionally intelligent and she was the one who confessed to me believe it or not
So objectively, life should feel good.
But it doesn’t.
My life for years has basically been challenge after challenge after challenge of Constant pressure. Constantly proving things to myself and Constant survival mode to the point where I didn't even enjoy my engineering days.I think my brain has forgot how to actually *feel* achievement , the dopamine , the endorphins whatever shit is associated with being happy its just not there. Every day it feels like fight or flight. Like if I stop moving for even a second, everything will collapses.
I had a decent lean physique at one point but I lost it all in pursuit of career success
The nature of my industry doesn’t help either. Quant Finance is hyper-competitive, performance-driven and intellectually brutal.
I often have strong feelings of being a fraud that I dont truly deserve to be where I am , the universe just lucked me into being here and whenever I under-perform anywhere I attach it to my self identity , which makes me even more depressed on some days
I think my ambition, the thing that got me here has also become the thing ruining my ability to be happy and content with what I have
so now I am in a weird dillemma:
I want to be successful, respected, exceptional in my own eyes be the best in my line of business and unequivocally in the top 1%
But I also want peace.
maybe just coast through work some of the days not work as hard
I want to feel like I deserve the life I built.
I want to feel proud of myself without immediately minimizing everything I’ve ever done.
Instead, every achievement feels emotionally weightless garbage after 5 minutes.
It’s like I spent so many years becoming “that perfect guy” that I forgot how to actually be me the goofball maybe I just over-complicated life too much through meticulous planning putting myself through these insane hoops trying to get it all that now life feels like a game of dark souls