What I've come to realize is a lot of these type things for above-average people have become nothing more than attendance awards. I remember when I graduated high school, everyone was acting like it's a big accomplishment. I off-put several people by saying I didn't really feel accomplished at all, what I did was never optional to me. College was more so, but that came down to attendance. Attending class was not a strong suit.

Even in the workplace now. My main job is a big corporate technical job. Yeah, I've had some challenging roles over the years, but it's gotten to the point that it's really an attendance contest too. I can do my full-time, well paid, salary job in 20 hours a week easily. Lately I've been working on some databases and scripting that will at the very least cut that in half by automating a lot of the menial tasks I do. I already have more areas of responsibility than anyone on my team too. Twice the amount of some of them. Still, it's just attendance. I've considered leaving, but I get this automation in and work from home most of the time, so why bother? Let them keep paying me, I keep doing what's asked well, and go on to see how much I can ramp up small business and side projects. Could I find something more challenging? Sure. But it's not going to be a significant bump in reward (i.e. pay). So, why?

I suppose it's only going to get worse. There has to be some side effects of society in general being full of worse people performing tasks less well.