“It is inevitable that life will not just be very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. New preoccupations take the place of the old, hope excites more hope and ambition more ambition. They do not look for an end to their misery, but simply change the reason for it. (Seneca)

Striving for public recognition, and never letting up, never being satisfied, always comparing yourself to someone richer, more powerful, more talented; all this is stressful and pointless. You might get out of it temporary fame and money, but the toll it takes on you trying to maintain and enhance your position in the public eye is exhausting and, in the end, ephemeral. When you die you die. Nothing will bring you back, and what use is fame and money and power to you dead?