I struggle with this too, as I have many hundreds of inventions scattered across my notes that I'll never get to make. The interesting thing is that many of them have manifested through the work of others over the last 20-30 years, although some are so fringe that I don't expect them to come into being without effort on my part.
The thought of never being able to make what's in my heart sent me to a dark place a few years ago and coincided with a profound burnout and breakdown in my physical health just before the pandemic.
As I've healed, I've come to believe in reincarnation. Not some woo woo metaphysical thing that can never be proven (it can't), but more like, having chapters or past lives within lives, usually transitioned through major life events and trauma. As in, my daily lived experience and worldview no longer align with the ones I had growing up, going off to school, entering my career, losing friends and family along the way, etc. This is maybe my 7th chapter?
Not only that, but we experience being ourselves in different lives when we dream. It's not a stretch for me to imagine waking up tomorrow in someone else's life, with no memory of my own. Which brings me peace, as it takes some of the pressure off of performing in my own life if my lived experience is just as sacred with the same dignity as everyone else's.
Where this matters is how I think about success and failure. Imagine if every risk we take is a coin flip that determines the next chapter of our lives in our next reality. Heads: we succeed and build upon that success. Tails: we fail and find ourselves deeper in the hole we've dug for ourselves.
Most of my heroes are successful people like Steve Wozniak and John Carmack. They enjoyed early success and found backing by benefactors who helped them stay on course and make the contributions in their hearts.
But I also feel a kinship with failures like Vincent van Gogh and Oscar Wilde. They worked in relative obscurity, never feeling like they accomplished what they wanted to do, all the way until the day they died.
My own life feels like a series of say 10 coin flips that all came up tails. In some ways I'm in the most wretched reality, the 1 of 1024 possible that most acutely exacerbates my suffering.
But that's not quite right, because my life is an equal balance of good and bad, in which serendipity gave me the most amazing experiences and opportunities. Almost like the universe was listening and went out of its way to lay the path for me to travel. I just didn't notice, because I was so wrapped up in external measures of success that I forgot that the important part is being alive and conscious to experience it all.
Now I have a pragmatic view of success and failure. I'm happy when people make it. But that's their experience, their life, their reality. What it really comes down to is, what to do with the time that is given to us, quoting Gandalf.
I think of reality now like a video game where we popped in a quarter to get an extra life. We do our best, we make our mark, then we find ourselves doing it all over again. I try to help people who have that fire in their belly to make the world a better place. But I'm concerned about people who haven't woken up to these sorts of ideas, who chase extreme wealth and power, in the end hurting an aspect of themselves in another life.
At the end of the day, my mantra is whatever it takes. I do whatever I can from moment to moment to shift into the reality I wish to exist in, through mindfulness meditation and daily practice to form habits which get me closer to my goals. As I've become more aware of concepts like co-creation, I've found that life opens up with new possibilities I hadn't conceived of, which has helped me find meaning and reaffirmed my belief in free will and freedom itself.
Practically, that means that I take care of my body's health, I go to work, but I define my own boundaries now. I take time for my own projects regardless of consequence, confident in my ability to handle what creation throws at me. I don't let others' lived experience overshadow my own anymore. I've gotten to experience the feeling of success lately, physically/mentally/spiritually, and it feels wonderful after so many years of struggling.
Basically, choose the one thing most dear to your heart, and go do that.
But these are my views through my filter. Please take them as leads, not conclusions. Apologies that this got so long again, but hey, it's Sunday.