You're not the only one here experiencing a great deal of resentment towards the structure and quality of our economy.

What boggles me is how we live in such an extremely powerful economy that's squandered on consumerism. Because we are all required to work full time jobs to afford our own houses, properties, and basic necessities, so many of us fill so many of us fill roles that aren't focused on production, and even for those of us who do, so much of what we produce is worthless -- nicknacks, novelties, and so many other things we don't need.

If you truly think about it, in order to achieve only what we NEED, as a society we wouldn't have to work anywhere near a 40 hour work week. Working for what we need takes far less time. It's just impossible to live that way in our economy.

I don't see why we can't evolve an economic system based on working less to just acquire needs and then spending the rest of our ample time devoted to productive hobbies and crafts. This way we'd also spend more time in pursuits involving people who are significant to us and not 40hr work weeks with strangers.

I used to have career oriented definition of success, but not anymore. Now, I daydream about working a part time job and growing my own produce. I might be less wealthy, and needlessly spending time on manual labour, but what matters is that I think it would be so much more satisfying. I think our brains were designed for that type of living and even if the work wasn't easy, over all, we'd be so much more satisfied.

Look at me, I went on my own tangent too!!

However, back to OP: I don't think you need to be blaming YOURSELF for being a good, hard working individual with a desire to learn how to do things well. What I think is even more destructive to our economy is people who have the opposite attitude of you -- people who chose to contribute the least but still expect pay.

Not to mention, I think it's extremely unhealthy to be blaming yourself for something that isn't anyone's fault!! It's unfortunate that it happened this way, but you are one individual in a sea of people who are all involved in the same economy.