You're equating potential with money. I make more people happy doing what I do now than what I would have done at Google. And importantly, I'm a much better father than I would have been were I working 50 hours a week. Me, my family and my community are all much better off with my current situation than we would have been had I taken the job.

>This mentality is what drives people to mediocrity. Not reaching your full potential just hurts yourself.

This mentality is what drives people to misery, greed, depression, stress, strained personal life and ill health.

One's "full potential" is not about making as much money as one could make.

I understand your point. But it doesn't mean we have to live with a hero complex / white man's burden. To consciously step away from earning more, and creating businesses doesn't mean driving oneself to mediocrity if it is to trade off for something they would rather do, appreciate more, and value more. It can be called selfish or hedonistic to do so. We only have one life, I'm not going to live it doing what others want.

There are things in life other than money, and people you can make happy in ways you never could with an extra couple of hundred thousand a year. We're social creatures, by and large - if you're trading away your time spent being part of society for some extra money, unless you're a certain type of person, you're almost definitely making yourself less happy - and if many people do it, they're making everyone else less happy as well as people have less opportunity to socialise and are more pressured into a game of increasing a number.

>This mentality is what drives people to mediocrity.

One reason for someone to think this way: in most western countries income at these levels is taxed at very high rates. Why work more when the government just takes a big chunk of your earnings?

> This mentality is what drives people to mediocrity.

As if excellence were measured in money.