Classic narcissists interact with the world as predators do with their prey. They want to do it all, own it all, be everywhere, experience everything. They cannot delay gratification. It is the discovery that the narcissist is NOT perfect, or ideal, or complete - that does him in. Waste of potential, waste of opportunities, waste of emotions, a wasteland of arid addiction and futile pursuit.
Narcissists are as gifted as they come.
The problem is to disentangle their tales of fantastic grandiosity from the reality of their talents and skills. They always tend either to over-estimate or to devalue their potency. They often emphasize the wrong traits and invest in their mediocre or less than average capacities. Concomitantly, they ignore their real potential, squander their advantage and under-rate their gifts. The narcissist decides which aspects of his self to nurture and which to neglect.