(no subject)
Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton;
"These feelings of deprivation may not look so peculiar, however, once we consider the psychology behind the way we decide what is enough. Our sense of an appropriate limit to anything - for example, to wealth and esteem - is never decided independently. It is decided by comparing our condition with that of a reference group, with that of people we consider to be our equals. We cannot appreciate what we have in isolation, nor judged against the lives of our medieval forbearers. We cannot be impressed by how prosperous we are in historical terms. We will only take ourselves to be fortunate when we have as much as, or more than, the people we grow up with, work alongside, have as friends and identify with in the public realm.
If we are made to live in a draughty, insalubrious cottage and bend to the harsh rule of an aristocrat in command of a large and well-heated castle, and yet we observe that all our equals live as we do, then our condition will seem normal; regrettable, certainly, but not fertile ground for a sense of envy. If we have a pleasant home and comfortable job, however, but learn through ill-advised attendance at a school reunion that some of our old friends (there is no stronger reference group) are now living in houses larger than our own, bought on the proceeds of more enticing occupations, we are likely to return home nursing a violent sense of misfortune.
It is the feeling that we might be something other than what we are - a feeling transmitted by the superior achievements of those we take to be our equals - that generates anxiety and resentment."
As we grow out of my lovely teenage years (yes at 23 I still sometimes think I am a teenager), it is almost unavoidable that we enter this other world where the job you have and amount of money you/your parents/other-half earns or where you stay and what car you drive tends to equate to your "worth" and success in life as compared to your peers or your father's friend's son. Such cruel trappings of society that I admit even I am, to a certain extent, brainwashed and made anxious by.
And so I try to constantly remind myself that who you truly are isn't derived from what you own nor the desirable facade you put up for others to see. I very much respect and have an admiration for people who can live honest lives and not be afraid to do things they really want to do, not things they are conditioned to want to do. I think it would be much less tiresome to live in this way.
"These feelings of deprivation may not look so peculiar, however, once we consider the psychology behind the way we decide what is enough. Our sense of an appropriate limit to anything - for example, to wealth and esteem - is never decided independently. It is decided by comparing our condition with that of a reference group, with that of people we consider to be our equals. We cannot appreciate what we have in isolation, nor judged against the lives of our medieval forbearers. We cannot be impressed by how prosperous we are in historical terms. We will only take ourselves to be fortunate when we have as much as, or more than, the people we grow up with, work alongside, have as friends and identify with in the public realm.
If we are made to live in a draughty, insalubrious cottage and bend to the harsh rule of an aristocrat in command of a large and well-heated castle, and yet we observe that all our equals live as we do, then our condition will seem normal; regrettable, certainly, but not fertile ground for a sense of envy. If we have a pleasant home and comfortable job, however, but learn through ill-advised attendance at a school reunion that some of our old friends (there is no stronger reference group) are now living in houses larger than our own, bought on the proceeds of more enticing occupations, we are likely to return home nursing a violent sense of misfortune.
It is the feeling that we might be something other than what we are - a feeling transmitted by the superior achievements of those we take to be our equals - that generates anxiety and resentment."
As we grow out of my lovely teenage years (yes at 23 I still sometimes think I am a teenager), it is almost unavoidable that we enter this other world where the job you have and amount of money you/your parents/other-half earns or where you stay and what car you drive tends to equate to your "worth" and success in life as compared to your peers or your father's friend's son. Such cruel trappings of society that I admit even I am, to a certain extent, brainwashed and made anxious by.
And so I try to constantly remind myself that who you truly are isn't derived from what you own nor the desirable facade you put up for others to see. I very much respect and have an admiration for people who can live honest lives and not be afraid to do things they really want to do, not things they are conditioned to want to do. I think it would be much less tiresome to live in this way.