I am successful.

Success gets measured against whichever ruler you happened to pick up, usually around nineteen, usually out of someone else's hand. Swap the ruler and the same life reads completely differently.

There is a version of you from five years ago who would have been badly relieved to have what you have this morning. The flat. The person. The skill that is now so ordinary you forget it had to be learned.

That is not a trick for feeling better about things. It is the more accurate measurement, taken from the distance at which the thing is actually visible.