It's A Hard Thing We Do

We'll spend our entire lives trying to be the best in at least one area of our lives.
It's almost as though we need to be good at something to prove our self-worth.
Sometimes it's about proving our worth just to ourselves, sometimes it's about proving our worth to other people...
What it comes down inevitably to is this...the likelihood of being number one in anything we do is extremely low. There will always be people will break our records, who will achieve higher and greater things, who will take over where we ended.
It leaves me with the conclusion that we shouldn't strive to be the best, but to do the best. We shouldn't build who we are around our performances or standing in life, but rather over personal goals, and just doing all that we can, being able to exit at the end of the day with the assurance that we have given 100%.
It strikes me that people would be happier if their self-worth wasn't so tied up in how they do things, but rather in the fact that they have done things, that they have already achieved goals and heights, and that life may not necessarily make them the greatest of all people, but who exactly is the greatest of all humans?
I apologize for the rambling, but these thoughts have been hanging around for a while, perhaps because this is what I do to myself. I try to be perfect at something, see other people doing better, and feel as though I have tumbled into a hole of imperfection and unhappiness.
Right now, sitting here, smelling the fresh almost warm air, seeing the natural light coming through the window, and being assured that winter is not forever, there is hope all around.