About 5 years ago I decided to dedicate a considerable amount of time to self-improvement and raising the quality of my life internally. The time I dedicated to self-actualization was taken form time I could have spent doing something else. As a result, I didn't do as well in school as I probably could have and sometimes I wonder if I would be more successful if I took a more mainstream route. Some examples that articulate this are the following  Instead of pushing myself super hard, I decided to take it a little easier in school so that I have time to contemplate and improve myself. I didn't think that getting caught up in a competitive, dog eat dog mindset would be healthy for me mentally or in terms of my success. I still wanted to take things and enjoy life instead of working myself to the bone at 15.  I decided to take on activities that I genuinely enjoyed as opposed to what would make me successful in say college applications. Because of that, I suppose people wouldn't see me as "standing out as a leader" because of the types of activities I was focused in. I mainly focused on things that would make me happy and creative as opposed to something that didn't resonate and/or would have felt forced like debate (I just wasn't into it at the time).  During college I immersed myself in therapy and self help work because I was dealing with serious trauma. My logic was that it's best if I dealt with this trauma early on instead of having the trauma sabotage me in the future. I limited the activities I took on in college and the amount of time I spent socializing. In other words I didn't see the typical college experience. My college experience was mainly me meditating and contemplating which were much more inward focused rather than doing things that were more outward focus such as socializing. Granted I ran into a handful of personal issues that I felt required me to take more time to myself instead of spread myself too thin, however, I could argue that most people who encounter something like this push through it any way and still focus their energy outwards and don't try to stop and be conscious of what's actually going on inside. At least from what i see, those people have more normal and successful lives but then again, I don't know these people and what's going on in their heads. This might be a case of the grass being greener on the other side.  I've tried to hold my values and my desire for peace and authenticity over success. If I'm going to be honest, sometimes I don't know if I have made the right decision.  Sometimes I look at people who haven't done this work and wonder if ignorance is bliss. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been more successful and fulfilled if I hadn't spent so much time contemplating and working on myself? Sometimes I also wonder if the work that I have done on myself will actually pay dividends and yield to even more success and fulfillment, may be not now, but down the line.  What are yall's thoughts on this? Have yall experienced anything similar? Have yall had doubts on whether to continue self actualization in any part of the journey?