> Doing something because other people are doing it is the path to misery and competition.

So very very wrong.

Doing everything everyone else is doing is the road to group membership and social acceptance and great cultural fit and the best jobs and the most lucrative opportunities and loads and loads of money.

Doing things specifically because nobody else is doing them is a ticket to a pit of despair full of poverty and loneliness and isolation.

I know the difference very well because I never do popular things. I always choose unpopular projects that nobody cares about because my attitude is if a project is too popular then too many people are doing it already. I want to do things that nobody else is doing because if not me then nobody else will do them.

Doing something that nobody else is doing is very rewarding. Talking to other people about it is misery. People do not care and you are competing for their attention with other things that they actually care about. And you lose the competition.