When I started high school I thought I wasn't good at anything. I was pretty rebellious and took up smoking / drinking at a young age. Then I started debating and found out I was pretty good at that, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of my slump. Turns out, winning debates is only cool to other debaters. I remember riding the bus full of idiots to school, listening to Modest Mouse on my first iPod, just wondering why life generally sucked.
When I went to college I tried to be one of those thoughtful types. My subconscious goal was to make everyone think I was tormented by deep thoughts. It was my way of trying to get people to like me and to feel special. (I was not conscious of this at the time). I smoked cigarettes a lot, became a vegetarian, and thought about how nothing matters. Reading Nietzsche for fun made me feel profound, and truly I learned a lot from it, but if I'm honest with myself I did it because I wanted people to respect me.
That's what I was missing in my life, what made me feel so bad for so long. I just didn't feel respected. I didn't think people took me seriously enough. I quit college debate, joined another student organization and became known as a friendly and smart guy there. Almost overnight everything got better. As I started getting happier and more respected by my peers, I also started becoming more ambitious. I dreamed about becoming president one day, about starting massive companies, about changing history.
That was about 3 years ago, and I've been mostly happy since that point in my life. Gradually I shed my old bad habits, like smoking, and picked up some good ones, like eating healthier and exercising. I no longer want people to think of me as someone who is tormented by his genius. I realized that people really don't relate to or respond well to that. I still want to be respected, but now I'm capable of getting respect because I learned the first step is to be a warm person towards others - not by trying to project any sort of image. The problem is that we all project an image whether we want to or not, so we have a tendency to try and control it. I've found that I'm happiest and I feel most respected when I'm focusing on the matter at hand rather than myself. Whether it's designing an interface (my job) or talking to a friend, I find I am happiest when I'm not thinking about myself.
Hope this helps somebody who's feeling like I felt 4 years ago.