alt Hacker News> doesn't make you a martyr because you get anxious
Every person's biggest problem is their biggest problem and it eats up their life in the biggest way possible.
Maslow's hierarchy is not a "smaller and smaller" problems list, it is a definition of what your biggest problem is & the solutions just scarcer as you climb up the ladder.
It's close to 20 years since I wrote about the same "problem" [1] in my life and the intervening years have brought much more grief, toil and resilience. Death of several loved ones causes you to consider what a virtue sounds like an eulogy and what yours will sound like in the end.
As an aside, I've felt like literature & art was backwards in the way it was introduced to me - where the first came "man vs nature", then man vs fellow man & then a "man vs self" battle. After fighting self and others, most of us will succumb to nature instead.
So, whenever someone vents or complains, just remember that this is not a contest or at least rage bait, but to be seen as a genuine struggle within yourself that you have put to words.
There's an episode of "Person of Interest" where the AI singularity struggles to play chess as each move cuts the possible moves and the first move is paralyzingly hard for it. Some people are like that, but regret is a form of hope without feathers. It comes from a strong belief that if you could wind the clock back and start over, it would be all different.
I nearly fell into the trap of Nihilism there ("Consider the Total Perspective Vortex")