Comment by pilgrim0

IMO simply striving to gain power or money is easier than to achieve greatness and mastery, in general. Mainly because one can lie their way into power and money, countless examples of that both at a local level and global level. Now, mastery requires the opposite of lying and pursuing easy to achieve goals. It’s the hardest path because frustration is constant, and it requires one to keep stretching the limits of their own capabilities, and it never gets easier. Self control in that scenario is not necessarily about getting things “done”, but rather to not give up, and keep trying restlessly. The lack of nuance in the summary of that paper makes me think it’s not worth reading it. For me, I have greater admiration and respect for someone who has failed majestically at being great, than for someone who deals purely with median or below median expectations. The former will have amazing stories to tell, the latter usually don’t. The summary given by this blog, and likely the paper, too, is heavily tainted with the idea of “being for others”, rather than the idea of “being for self”. Again, being for others is super easy because it’s simply a matter of controlling the information you give, people do that all the time in social media. This doesn’t work for “being for self” because one can’t fool oneself indefinitely. Like the summary hints at, striving for greatness indeed involves fulfilling many achievements in the process of pursuing the greater achievement. This usually doesn’t count for observers, though, because the crowd has no taste or time for the story, but only for conclusions. Again illustrating how “being for self” is harder, as you’re set to be perceived as less than what you’re really trying to become. A functional remedy for that is simply to not be so public about your desires, which has the upside of protecting you from all sorts of exploitation.