I am constantly having a similar thought. I'm a student and not a single thing I do is good enough. I've gotten honors and awards every semester, I get good grades, but not without professors tearing apart my papers with petty criticisms, not infrequently contradicting their own instructions. And then I think about what George Carlin said, or a paraphrase of it, "think about the stupidest person you know. Most people are even more stupid than that" or some such, and I'm just like ??

Intelligence is becoming a fucking rarity in the US, but because of that it's almost becoming a form of deviance that everyone is afraid of, questions, or dislikes. Or all of those.