Do you take pride in your achievements?

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I started listening to the first episode of the podcast Them Aspergers. I may have heard or interpreted him wrong but one of the hosts said he never felt pride in his accomplishments. When people heard about how he graduated and earned his degree they would praise him but he saw it all as just a bother. I've never heard of this, I have issues with self-esteem so I often have trouble allowing myself to feel pride or take compliments but he described it as if this is just an emotion he didn't experience and it made no difference to him.

It depends on my mood.

I haven’t achieved much...but from where I was at age 2, I’ve come a long way.

I’m only a clerk—but I’ve been independent since age 20. I didn’t talk until I was 5 years old.

What achievements? I don't think I have achieved anything?

Sure, but sometimes I consider things that others wouldn't as achievements and sometimes I don't concider things that others do as achievements.

I can really relate. Some of the most neurotypically important things; passing my doctoral thesis comes to mind, left me in tears. All that work for this? For what? It meant so little.

It has helped that my accomplishments now tend to be things that I do to improve the lives of others. I frequently forget these things, but sometimes I remember them with a low level but pleasant glow. Words in my head are something like, "Yeah, I did good there."

I do try to focus on the good things each day and over time, this creates a memory chain of good things rather than a chain of negative things.

My father was very discouraged when he asked if I felt satisfied by finishing something. Typically, by the end I was unhappy that I couldn't make it as nice as I'd first imagined it, and had to quit before making it worse. Even worse, now I had nothing that seemed worth doing. Perhaps he got a rush from getting to use his new thing, but I would just get involved in the new activity, perhaps distracted by thoughts of re-doing the previous job better.
Recently, I was reflecting on my accomplishments, and noticed that I only feel inclined to brag about the way I do one class of installations, far more efficiently than any others I have seen, but the bragging is also a goad to the others to do better. Major technical awards are down in the pile of possibly useful data.
I have always been puzzled that the US, one of the most nominally Christian countries, is also so forthright about glorifying one of the seven deadly sins - pride. I try to avoid it.

I don’t think I have any achievements to take pride in. All I’ve ever done is what’s expected of me, and if, say, I hadn’t graduated from college (which is the thing people usually point to when I say I don’t have any accomplishments), my parents would have been extremely disappointed in me rather than being proud of me because I did do it (and I barely made it anyway, my grades were absolutely nothing to be proud of by any stretch of the imagination). And it’s not like it’s done me any good, either - I’ve only ever worked as a part-time janitor, and the number of job offers I’ve turned down is exactly zero.

I mainly feel stressed about my past achievements - because they raise expectations on me. I remember this feeling even from primary school.
On the other hand, my successes helped me keep some social position for most of my life. Fear of losing it put quite a lot of pressure on me.

Now I'm trying to grow out of it and just live my life. Age helps.

No. I take pride in what my students do with what I teach them, not in what I do myself. It is better that way.

I don't.
They're inconsistent therefore meaningless.

I could always look back the big things I did and ask myself: "What the heck was that?!" Out of disbelief. Or a good laugh, maybe. It's just what happens.



There are few things I've done that I'm truly proud of;
One, to witness things. To witness things not everyone gets to especially.

Two, to contribute for something. More so if no one else is doing it and no one had to know.

And three, my will of breaking my cycles. A consistent sign of progression, a sign of control over my fate through change.


My proudest achievement is not being the best player at the games, the highest grade scores at classes, the number of people I've cheered up and the number of people I've proved wrong compared to others around me, not even the best attained outcomes of the jobs I did...

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Yes, very much so. Most of my achievements are quite small. I'm happy with that, just plugging away to make my life a little bit easier here and there, usually by finding a solution to some minor problem that's annoying me. Possibly my musical achievements are bigger, but the size of the project doesn't much matter to me. One big thing or a lot of little things, not a lot of difference really. If you mean achievements as per the stereotypical mainstream life goals, not so much - if by coincidence I happen to want something that's also a big mainstream measure of a person's worth, then yes, but if I don't then I don't bother with it, and if I do, I'm no more proud of the result than I would be about some small or unusual goal of my own.

I've noticed that achieving something or other is very important to my feelings of well-being. I can't seem to settle for just being a spectator, I've got to do things, try things out and see how well I can do. If I'm not rising to a significant challenge, I'm not happy. I get very perfectionist about it, I always want to make the result a bit better than just good enough. The satisfaction from my achievements is usually short-lived. One I get used to the surprise of having got my result, I'm unhappy again. But sometimes an old achievement can get a new lease of life if somebody else sees it and seems to admire it. So I suppose I see impressing others with my intelligence and skill as an achievement in itself, though I don't plan it to happen and it doesn't happen much, probably because few people would be interested in the minute details of my interests, which tend to be very specialised and hard for others to understand or see the point. It's a shame I can't share more of it, but I guess my thinking style and preferences are too unique for that, and I can't imagine that will change.

I think it's more than just pride though. It's a more general satisfaction and a feeling that I'm really living while I'm chasing a result and pitting my wits against the chaos of my environment. It's the battle, and it's those moments where after feeling stumped something occurs to me and I think "hang on, I think if I just tweak this here I can turn this situation round." I find that exciting and when I get such insights I can hardly wait to try them out. Having a human brain and using it to solve problems is something I never get tired of, as long as it seems to be getting me somewhere.

I have moments of indulging myself in my hobby (making musical compositions) and I experience pleasure with occupying the hobby but also phases where I am not able to participate in doing so due to self-critiquing. I think possibly sometimes I let my ego get in the way of it or theres some thought blocks that stop me from occupying the hobby and I lose myself.

[offtopic]Someone who is told they are doing bad in academic science though, could go onto be a good scientist. Albert Einstein was famously put down by his teachers for his work, and turns out he was a very intelligent man.[offtopic]

I can honestly say that having achievements is something that doesn't interest me. The world has a concept of "success" that is often taken for granted, as in "of course you want to be successful and have accomplishments," but that type of thinking really has nothing to do with me, and I don't share that view.

There are things I am good at and that I enjoy doing, and I want to do them well because it would defeat the purpose of doing them in the first place if I didn't do them well (like making art for instance), but it's not because I want to have an accomplishment, it's because I want to make this thing and it has to be a certain way in order to be good. (It's a bit like cooking. I want the food to taste good because I'm going to eat it, it's not that I want it to be an accomplishment.)

I see it as similar to seeking praise from others, except that it's a form of seeking praise from oneself. I don't seek praise and, again, it doesn't interest me.

hell yeah. i turned my damn life around - however much there was to turn around anyway.