IME a lot of smart people aim at optimizing for whatever system they find themselves in, rather than questioning that system and asking themselves if it’s actually the life they want.
And so you get an army of very bright people all jumping through the same hoops to achieve the same goals, and half of them are miserable.
And so you get an army of very bright people all jumping through the same hoops to achieve the same goals, and half of them are miserable.