I have to say that it sounds to me like you very much would like to be someone/something that you are not but at the same time are not willing to take even baby steps to reach the standards you have set for yourself. I believe it was Einstein who reminded us that doing the same things we have always done is extremely unlikely to produce different results (his wording was a bit different, but the punchline is the same). In my opinion, you reallly have two options. Either adjust yourself to meet your own standards, or adjust your standards to meet yourself.

This is perhaps one of the most brutal things someone could say to me, because I believe it to be wholly untrue, and yet I sound like a pathetic wallower if I dare try to refute it.

And I fear that everyone who knows me in the slightest agrees with the above.

And I fear that the above is true, in which case I am completely removed from reality and the glass is even emptier than I usually think it is.