Definitions of success I have a problem with

Unpopular opinion: I hate pep talks about seizing the day, following your bliss and leaving ordinary life behind. Why? What's wrong with ordinary, if you're perfectly happy in it? We cannot all be extraordinary - it's a linguistic absurdity! - so all those do is make those of us who can't be extraordinary feel anxious and guilty for not even wanting it, and even valueless in our state of ordinariness. I just hate this rhetoric.

Here's what I'm talking about, an except of one such pep talk: "the people that I admired… the people [who] really knew how to live" - there's one specific way to do living right? Isn't that limiting, and thus ironic for a rhetoric that's supposed to jerk you into breaking your limits (of course, it just assumes you're boxed in and unhappy about it)?

Moreover, it's really easy for people who seemingly have no responsibilities for anyone else in the world. You can't just quit and follow a chimaera if you need to provide sustenance and safety for minors, or if you have aging parents that couldn't make it without your help. It just breezily assumes we're all middle- or upper-class, free people who can afford to not be needed by anyone, or can be easily replaced in personal relationships, or have no problem sacrificing them, and that's a mightily privileged, and therefore exclusive, position.

And another thing. I hate that they all invariably define success and happiness, no matter how broadly they present their ideas, as personal expression. While I tend to agree with that personally, for many people success and happiness can be amply found in the area of personal relationships, for example. Or in being useful for other, in some kind of service. In something that's directed outwards, and not inwards, which is our modern-day obsession - endless self-exploration, self-development and self-expression, as if it's just us in the world and nothing we do can possibly affect anyone else, let alone our communities and societies as a whole.

That said, it occurred to me that many of those essays and talks might be borne out of the discomfort and dissatisfaction of a life in a corporate machine of repeating the same actions every day and never having the satisfaction of seeing the results of your efforts, in a complete and productive circle. I can respect that, of course, because a life defined from start to end can be suffocating, especially if paired with the western mantra of our supposed endless choices and absolute freedom. It makes for an especially frustrating combination, because you eventually realise it's false advertising. Naturally, at some point you'd stop kidding yourself that your structured life is freedom and choice and start looking for those elsewhere; or, if you're really inquisitive and exposed to other ideas about the world, discard the ideology of individual freedom and self-expression altogether.