I think you’re confusing a good work ethic and ambition with the relentless pursuit of an unattainable ideal.

For instance, I’m in law school right now. I work hard, and when I graduate I’m going to work even harder for a while for exactly the reason you laid out.

Some of my classmates, though, have to be at the absolute top of the class, and get on the best journal, so that they get the offer from the top firm, so that they can outwork all the other associates, so that they make partner, and then they can build the biggest book of business and so on and so forth…

Aside from finding all that extremely off-putting as a personality trait, I want to be able to share a life with my s.o. not just lay my head down next to them for 6 hours a night. Which is happens when they’re up at 5am to train for a marathon that I’m not running in before their 8am-10pm workday.