I am/was an only child, and when I was young, my father said two things to me in passing that have always stuck with me. I think they are related.
The first one, when I was being demanding, was, "You're not that important, and you're not that smart. Other people want things as well, and just because you want something doesn't mean anything."
The second was that I cared way too much about what other people thought of me.
Now, those two things taken out of context, might perhaps sound mean in the context of our helicopter parent, "you're a special snowflake" culture. But they weren't mean at all, actually. My father loved me very much, and he was a very kind man. The thing is, he wasn't trying to make me feel bad about myself. He was trying to cure me of vanity.
I kind of idealized my father when I was young, so his words tended to have more weight than a lot of other people's. Now, as a middle-aged adult, I look back on these two statements/ideas, and I realize that my father ended up giving me a rather rare gift, whether he knew it or not. He taught me to be less interested than I think most people are in acclaim -- in "success" in the sense of importance or having a legacy. I think I may be more comfortable than a lot of people with simply living my life on my own terms. I like doing a good job at a task, and I take pride in a job well done, but the idea of needing to be considered exceptional is not something that particularly drives me. And I think that's part of the reason why I am completely comfortable with the idea of FIRE. I don't anticipate that I'm going to miss being complimented for how good I am at my job. And I don't really have a lot of feelings of regret in any way, in terms of things I haven't accomplished professionally. There are a few things that I'm very proud of accomplishing, but those aren't things that have made a grand contribution to the world. And I am totally good with that. I admire people who have made a great contribution in a meaningful and positive way. I just am not bothered that I am not one of them.