You’ve all decided to sacrifice the future to the present. You don’t talk about it. You don’t all get together and say, “Let’s take the easier path. … - Jordan Peterson

Beware of single cause interpretations — and beware the people who purvey them.

When the internal critic puts you down using such comparisons, here's how it operates:
First, it selects a single, arbitrary domain of comparison ( fame, maybe, or power).
Then it acts as if that domain is the only one that is relevant. Then it contrasts you unfavorably with someone truly stellar, within that domain.

It can take that final step even further, using the unbridgeable gap between you and its target of comparison as evidence for the fundamental injustice of life. That way your motivation to do anything at all can be most effectively undermined.

I exposed myself to a larger number of paintings, I like to think, than anyone else in history. For at least four years, starting in 2001, I searched eBay, looking at roughly a thousand paintings a day, seeking the one or two in that number that were of genuine quality.