@Brendan Lea Thank you, this assures that I'm moving in the right direction.

Yes! I spent so long taking the stance that "there is suffering" is just an inherent feature of existence and the best I can do is learn to live with it. Grow a thick skin, so to say. Whether or not this is what Buddha meant, this is how I understood it. (As Peter's pointed out, Buddha didn't write anything). As you said, it didn't take long after I opened to the possibility that it doesn't have to be like that, it started to fade away. There's more to it but it's as if a lot of what I called suffering isn't that at all. It was my calling it suffering that made me perceive it as such.

I will write out how I understand the problem as my understanding of it is what I will be replying to. You are noticing that you are attached to being the best. This takes wasted effort. You are noticing that you have physical safety and are not actually in danger of physically dying, yet react to life as if you are, constantly. Then the question arises: why do you do this? What is the goal of this effort? Looking back, this noticing was an important milestone as it brought me closer to what it feels to be me, the suffering of it. It really does suck, I feel you. This suckiness has proven to be the only motivation that pushed me to keep doing the work. There is no way back and it will keep getting worse until you do something about it. Having wasted so many years on doing just that, I invite you to not see this suffering as a problem, but rather a fact of the matter. The way out isn't to "escape" the suffering. I've tried everything and there is no escape. The way out is to see it, grasp it, understand it (or whatever is causing it). This can be done. If I may, with all due respect, the inquiry you raise is not useful. Notice how you ask the questions: - "What does it contribute?" - To whom? Is the you to which this effort contributes (or should contribute) something a different you that wants to be the best? - "How come so much of my self-mind activity and so much of what I do ends up giving energy to this?" - WHOSE self-mind activity? So much of what WHO does? To WHOM or WHAT does it give energy to? - "Is that what keeps us from being free and happy?" - keeps WHO from being free and happy? While the questions I raise are very Ramana Maharshi this really didn't make a lot of sense to me for a long time, because it's so habitual be ourselves (and because it doesn't in fact make "sense" - it's not logical). Consider the possibility that the whole problem arises from the nature of being a self. The most accurate answer to why or how or what might just be "because" or "that".