Ryan, just wanted to say this is a huge realization and call out. And in addition, I think this pressure from our families (tiger parenting) combined with their narrow definition of success (certain career paths, financial success) also limit our understanding and definition of what success can look like, which you allude to earlier in your post when you mentioned "everyone pressuring me to sell out and make a lot of money in a firm." I experienced this directly when I started my career in investment banking (and also when I left banking to pursue things I felt more meaningful).

This pressure and these stereotypes make it really tough to carve out your own path, and define what success means to you, and even escape the idea that no success is actually ever enough. It's been a 10 year journey (and still ongoing journey) of unlearning, relearning (+ now therapy) to try and redefine my relationship to self and come to grips with what being authentically, truly me means (while also financially supporting a family). But it's a fight I'm privileged to fight by virtue of having been afforded the opportunity and shown that I can succeed through the traditional lens. And it's one I think is worth fighting every day, to quote ee cummings:

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”