Self-assertion and interest are two different things

If you really are interested in, for example, painting, then you love to paint, you don't compete with others in order to become the best, or the most famous, painter.

You simply love to paint.

Perhaps there is another person who is a better painter than you, but you don't compare yourself with this other.

When you paint, you love what you do, and in you this is enough.

You are one with what you are, you are fully and completely existing, and the important is present and real.