[Dominance hierarchy] is a near-eternal aspect of the environment. We have lived in a dominance hierarchy for a long, long time. We were struggling for position before we had skin, or hands, or lungs, or bones. There is little more natural than culture. Dominance hierarchies are older than trees.

…

There is an unspeakably primordial calculator, deep within you, at the very foundation of your brain, far below your thoughts and feelings. It monitors exactly where you are positioned in society.

…

The ancient part of your brain specialised for assessing dominance watches how you are treated by other people. On that evidence, it renders a determination of your value and assigns you a status. If you are judged by your peers as of little worth, the counter restricts serotonin availability. That makes you much more physically and psychologically reactive to any circumstance or event that might produce emotion, particularly if it is negative.

Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life

Some thoughts:

Chasing for excellence is an end goal in itself. Seems like it’s an inescapable fate of ours to constantly seek to improve our perceived worth within our circle of peers. It is somewhat comforting to know there’s nothing wrong, nothing less honourable for us to constantly chase for excellence in whatever is deemed of worth within our circle of peers, even if that can be extremely vapid- its backed by primordial biology. (of course, the overall survival fitness of your circle of peers could be threatened in the long run)

Your tribe is important. I guess another way to hack this would be to insulate ourselves with a circle of peers that use different standards and criteria for value judgement – standard and criteria in which we are judged favourably.

Or perhaps there’s the third option of being entirely delusional about one’s value, and completely oblivious of other’s value judgments on oneself.

Much food for thought eh?