No one counts or appreciates all of history's noble but lost causes, nor the human toll of misery that is the ignored, larger side of competing in any market. Our grasping obsession with winning blinds us to the contributions and, in the end, the wasted resources of the losers. As a society, there may be value in recognizing and even honouring the losers who actually tried to make a positive difference in the world. That would encourage more to try. But, at the personal level, an important question remains. At what point do we know when tenacity in pursuit of a dream becomes pathological? I suspect that you can only know that if you know what is fundamentally salient to your purpose in life. If that purpose doesn't include happiness, community and genuine service to others then it probably doesn't matter.
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