TED Talk
A kinder, gentler philosophy of success by Alain de Botton
Summary
Alain examined the reasons causing career anxiety, which is a feeling commonly found in all of us.
There are a number of reasons for this.
The first one is related to the global phenomenon SNOBBERY, job snobbery in particular. It means people judges you base on only your title, position and status. The opposition of snobbery is MOTHER, who doesn't care what you have achieved. Job snobbery is so popular, making us more and more concern about our career and materialistic achievements.
The second reason is we have greater hope for our career. This is made possible by modern society in which anyone can rise to the position they please. But the problem of this actually links to this spirit of equality, and that is ENVY. Alain suggested that we usually only take people with similar background, age and position to make reference. The closet the background two people are, the more the danger of envy. However, we are unable to differentiate ourselves from what actually we can be and the one we make reference to. We may mistakenly believe we can be as successful as somebody and that could be quite stressful.
The follow-up question to the above can also be reflected from the self-help book section. There are basically only two kinds of books there, one is telling you "You Can Do It!", while another will be telling you how to cope with your "low self-esteem". It is actually pulling us into two extremes, making us much more anxious.
The third reason also links to something ought to be nice but followed by a lot of setbacks. And that is MERITOCRACY. We are now living in a meritocratic society, which means we believe the capable one can and should get to the top. So by implication, we will also believe those at the bottom is deserved there and should stay there. Such idea makes failure more crushing. We often mix up the unfortunate with loser. And we take our success and failure so personally because of this prevailing idea, which in turn, intensifies our anxiety.
Alain offered his views to that could help us in lessening the level of our anxiety.
As for meritocratic society, he confessed that it is impossible to have a perfect meritocracy as there are too many things that are out of our control. He reminded us not to judge people too quickly, as we don't know what the true value they have.
In response to the nasty feeling of failure, he clarified that it is mainly the judgement and ridicule by others that makes us miserable. Instead of laughing at people how ridiculous he may be of ruining his life, Alain provided an alternative. He thought we should learn from one of the western traditional legacies and that is TRAGIC ART. Tragic art is an art form that devoted to tracing how people fail and accord them with sympathy (that we usually won't). He tried to correct our thought that it is insane to called Helmet a LOSER but he just had lost.
We are now living in a world that we don't worship something transcendent but only believe in the power of human. He reviewed that it is why we particularly drawn to nature, as we can escape from the competition and human anthill by appreciating nature.
As last, he questioned how much we know about SUCCESS. He simply pointed out that one can't be success in everything. What he suggested is our definition of success is usually sucked from others but not our own ideas, and then this affect how we view ourselves. It is not the problem we want to be successful and what is successful meant to us, but he wanted us to make sure the idea of success, especially when we review our life by the end of the journey, are truly our own.
A kinder, gentler philosophy of success by Alain de Botton
Summary
Alain examined the reasons causing career anxiety, which is a feeling commonly found in all of us.
There are a number of reasons for this.
The first one is related to the global phenomenon SNOBBERY, job snobbery in particular. It means people judges you base on only your title, position and status. The opposition of snobbery is MOTHER, who doesn't care what you have achieved. Job snobbery is so popular, making us more and more concern about our career and materialistic achievements.
The second reason is we have greater hope for our career. This is made possible by modern society in which anyone can rise to the position they please. But the problem of this actually links to this spirit of equality, and that is ENVY. Alain suggested that we usually only take people with similar background, age and position to make reference. The closet the background two people are, the more the danger of envy. However, we are unable to differentiate ourselves from what actually we can be and the one we make reference to. We may mistakenly believe we can be as successful as somebody and that could be quite stressful.
The follow-up question to the above can also be reflected from the self-help book section. There are basically only two kinds of books there, one is telling you "You Can Do It!", while another will be telling you how to cope with your "low self-esteem". It is actually pulling us into two extremes, making us much more anxious.
The third reason also links to something ought to be nice but followed by a lot of setbacks. And that is MERITOCRACY. We are now living in a meritocratic society, which means we believe the capable one can and should get to the top. So by implication, we will also believe those at the bottom is deserved there and should stay there. Such idea makes failure more crushing. We often mix up the unfortunate with loser. And we take our success and failure so personally because of this prevailing idea, which in turn, intensifies our anxiety.
Alain offered his views to that could help us in lessening the level of our anxiety.
As for meritocratic society, he confessed that it is impossible to have a perfect meritocracy as there are too many things that are out of our control. He reminded us not to judge people too quickly, as we don't know what the true value they have.
In response to the nasty feeling of failure, he clarified that it is mainly the judgement and ridicule by others that makes us miserable. Instead of laughing at people how ridiculous he may be of ruining his life, Alain provided an alternative. He thought we should learn from one of the western traditional legacies and that is TRAGIC ART. Tragic art is an art form that devoted to tracing how people fail and accord them with sympathy (that we usually won't). He tried to correct our thought that it is insane to called Helmet a LOSER but he just had lost.
We are now living in a world that we don't worship something transcendent but only believe in the power of human. He reviewed that it is why we particularly drawn to nature, as we can escape from the competition and human anthill by appreciating nature.
As last, he questioned how much we know about SUCCESS. He simply pointed out that one can't be success in everything. What he suggested is our definition of success is usually sucked from others but not our own ideas, and then this affect how we view ourselves. It is not the problem we want to be successful and what is successful meant to us, but he wanted us to make sure the idea of success, especially when we review our life by the end of the journey, are truly our own.
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