Sometimes outcomes and achievements and work product are useful beyond just... stack ranking yourself against your peers. Seems so odd to me that this is your mentality unless you're earlier in your career.

Fair enough. I've been in software more than I would like to admit. And the more I'm in, the less I care about achievements in a work environment. All I care about is that the company pays me every month, because companies don't care about me (they care about my outome per hour/week/month). So it's essential to rank yourself high against your peers (being ethically and the like, ofc), otherwise you are out in the next layoff. I know not every company is like this, but the vast majority of tech companies are.

Outside of work, yeah, everything is fine and there's nothing but the pure pursue of knowledge and joy.

Usually hedonic adaptation ends up catching up, and then it’s just the new baseline.