So don't think Bitcoin and Bitcointalk are any different from life.
You may look at a forum member with legendary rank and you want to achieve that, it's good that that motivates you, but you have to know that they didn't just achieve that overnight. They learned, grew, improved themselves, and improved others to get to that level.
Whatever you want, work hard and smart for it because it won't be handed to you on a platter.
For those that place a lot of importance in forum rank it can be frustratingly slow to rank up if you're not purposely hunting for merit by spamming a bunch of threads and jumping on bandwagons to support opinions held by popular high ranking members. I can see how newbies might become discouraged. For me I've noticed that I tend to receive merit on topics where I've gone out of my way to do some research and gain a better understanding.
If you want to have success then it is worth putting in the effort necessary to achieve it.