It’s clear to me now that it's not about what I know, but rather how I think that's different on these days.

So the two questions for me are: (1) How can I have more good days than bad ones? And, (2) what exactly am I doing differently on my good days?

About relative deprivation

Top students convincing everyone else to stop trying. Or, great engineers convincing the rest to stop trying.

This is ego distraction in action. Self comparison determining effort. If we feel like we’re ahead we continue to put in the effort. If we feel like we’re not, we determine it’s not worth the effort.

About ego

The Ego's trick is always the same. Make it personal. Make it about me. Put me at the center. So when we sit down to solve a problem the trick is to only ask ourselves problem related questions. These are "the" or "what" type questions. We must avoid asking the personal "I" or "me" type questions. So instead of thinking "Did I cause the bug?", we instead ask "Where is the bug?".