Very true. Many comments in this overall post arrive at the nuanced stance that it's the effort that is key to focus on and relate. Everything else there is no way to connect to causality.

I want to add that "belief" in yourself, though as you say is rather a biased pathway, is still to me so essential and valuable. Because it is the thing that in some socioeconomic circles is taken for granted and in others is completely assumed in the reverse. So from a humanist perspective I'd rather people fall short of their dream than to never even be able to dream at all.

I guess I am saying it is the lived experience that counts. If you are blissfully naive then is it a better life? iono maybe! but that's reminds me of beautiful animals. And the difference between humans and animals, so far as we come to believe, is that we can choose to suffer. and understand happiness and in that be so utterly unhappy. hah