Satus Anxiety

'Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first - the story of our quest for sexual love - is well known and well-charted. The second - the story of our quest for love from the world - is a more secret and shameful tale. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first.' Thus speaks Alain de Botton author of the thought provoking book Status Anxiety. In this day and age, we are given respect in direct proportion to our (perceived) "success". It is like a calibration, for the world to decide how much respect they owe us. So desperate are we for status, it is the over-riding concern of our lifetimes to achieve status and respect. Increasingly, status in the West has been awarded in relation to financial achievement. The consequences of high status are pleasant. They include resources, freedom, space, comfort, time and, as importantly perhaps, a sense of being cared for and thought valuable ? conveyed through invitations, flattery, laughter, deference and attention.

High status is thought to be one of the finest of earthly goods. For this reason, we worry whenever we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society. We worry that we may be stripped of dignity and respect, we worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one. We might not worry so much if status were not so hard to achieve and even harder to maintain over a lifetime. Except in societies where it is fixed at birth and our veins flow with noble blood, our position hangs on what we can make of ourselves; and we may fail in the enterprise due to stupidity or an absence of self-knowledge, macro-economics or malevolence.

From failure will flow humiliation: a corroding awareness that we have been unable to convince the world of our value and are henceforth condemned to consider the successful with bitterness and ourselves with shame. The trouble with America in particular is the belief that if you work hard, you will be proportionately blessed with financial success. The converse side of this coin is that if you lack financial succes, you simply don't deserve it. Of course this fails to take into account the dynamics of macro economies in which national wealth is not necessarily a representation of the those who individually share in this success.

I think the problem in our competitive societies today is that the more we acquire, the more difficult we will be to please, yet at the same time the more difficult it will be to achieve status (simply because there is more to "wade through" before arriving at the peak. In modern societies if one is born into dire poverty it is very very difficult to "wade through" everything that stands in the way, and the more prosperous society becomes the more there is to wade through). The analogy is a waterfall. The people at the top are comfortably safe. Those int he middle will either sink of swim and are struggling to stay in the same place, desperately afraid of being sucked down and equally determined to reach reach the top. Those at the bottom of the waterfall simply have no chance.

I was once told that there are three possible solutions to most problems, money, a miracle or to simply change the paradigm. In the case of status anxiety, only two of those will solve it. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the Buddhist book, and instead change our perspective and realise the ultimate futility and mortality of our existence. The problem you see, only exists because we use society as our mirror. If we stopped and put it all in perspective, we might change ours. Ways to avoid stress:

1. Perspective. This is probably the most important. Will this problem affect you in a few days, in a year, or in the long term? If it doesn't affect your overall or long term happiness it probably doesnt matter that much.

2. The solution won't fall out of the sky. Miracles don't happen anymore. When faced with a challenge it is best sometimes to take the bull by the horns and deal with it as opposed to ignoring or postponing your action.

3. Priorities. What is most important at the time? By prioritising, you will come to realise that you can only effectively deal with one problem at a time. Defeat each problem in chunks.

4. Life plan. It sounds awfully cliche but without a plan you will simply drift about constantly changing tack, never settling on a single course. Success at anything come wtih patience and persistence.

5. Set realistic goals. Success is proportional to expectation over achievement. If you make your expectations realistic you are less likely to be disappointed. Don't build castles in the sky.

6.Relax! Simply take some time out once in a while to review and put things in perspective.

Ted Nichols is a writer for http://gentlemans-journal.blogspot.com and http://topicalinterest.blogspot.com

---

Joseph Bonaparte and The New Jersey Devil

Joseph Bonaparte and The New Jersey Devil:"Commodore Stephen Decatur was an American naval hero in the early nineteenth century. According to legend, he visited the Hanover Mill... Read More

Extra Terrestrial Genetic Defect Myth

There is a large contingency of people who believe in aliens and extra terrestrials. There are endless stories of abduction by UFO aliens, unbelievably performing spacecraft and... Read More

The Cosmic Eggs

One of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World is reported (many years after all but the Great Pyramid had vanished) to be the Temple of Artemis... Read More

Teilhard de Chardin

FATHER PIERRE TEILHARD de CHARDIN:He is one of my heroes and an inspiration for all who seek for Peace and Harmony through a 'conspiracy of LOVE'. His... Read More

All That We Are... Are Labels

Within the confines of the known universe, a madness is present that taints all of the knowledge which every human being has aquired within their life, and... Read More

My Insight into Numerology

From time to time, we wonder about the mystery that exists in our day to day experiences and events that happen in our lives. Some parts of... Read More

The Early Life of Jesus

INTRODUCTION:Yeshua bar Joseph or Yeshua ben Joseph has become known as Jesus Christ. He was neither Jesus nor The Chriost. (1) This book will dare to try... Read More

From Experience: Is It the Circle of Life?

All of it in one way or another a part of my lifetime and not an analytical study of the way that business has changed but a... Read More

The Esoteric Mandate (Rothschilds too)

The monopoly called usury given to a specific group of Jews has a long history including Templars with Papal Passports. You might think the Jews have been... Read More

Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #2

Appeals to AuthorityListen to this quote by a guy I am sure some of you have heard of:"Our society is dominated by experts, few more influential than... Read More

Quotes to Think About

INSPIRATIONAL COMMENTS:"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in... Read More

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Web

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them. The probability of that obviously is very low but laws of probability have... Read More

Nostradamus Saw

The Luciferians are the inner cabal of the Vatican according to Malachi Martin (And have been for a long time as I have demonstrated in other books.).... Read More

Crop Circles and Critical Mass

CROP CIRCLES:The Learning Channel (August 7, 2003) just had a show about crop circles. Here are two major points that no debunker will be able to explain... Read More

In Answer To: Words Of Encouragement

Throughout my life, I have always known that it is not easy to fight injustices. I grew up in Jersey City and started to work during summers... Read More

The Pertinence of Nudity

Every kind of nudity is an abstraction. A man without clothes submits himself to immediate opinion. Nudity emphasizes coarseness devoid of culture, clothes advocate culture without coarseness.... Read More

Youre Wrong

Isn't it amazing how often you're wrong? I mean that you, as a person, have no idea how to live and haven't got the foggiest clue how... Read More

Three Theories

An event occurs, then there must be an antecedent event, prior to it, causing it and this event will serve as an antecedent to another event and... Read More

Checked Into Nirvana. Where Is Joy?

Eckhart Tolle lived upto his twenty ninth year in a state of almost continual anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. Then he woke up one night... Read More

The Galileo Conspiracy: 5 Questions Your Science Professors Hope You Never Ask

As a young lad, I took on my first scientific experiment simply because I could. Like most curious youngsters who own walky-talkies, I could only resist for... Read More

Tempus Fugit and the Dollar Doesnt

Money is time, a commodity which can be used to gage worth in respect to the time needed to construct, design, build, assemble, mine or in other... Read More

The Concept of the Sublime in Eighteenth Century Philosophy

The development of the concept of the sublime as an aesthetic quality distinct from beauty was first brought into prominence in the eighteenth century in the writings... Read More

Nature of Visual Representation

Nature is often called "red in tooth and claw", this means covered in blood, and comes from a fairy tale called Wolfking; it is a story of... Read More

Guerrilla Mythbusting: 5 Snappy Rules For Spotting and Exposing Popular Nonsense

College students tend to wax enthusiastic about the lessons they pick up in class. Curiously, this very admirable trait, a thirst for knowledge, has a downside to... Read More

Desire is the First Step

When a member of a species determines it wants something a thought is born, which triggers a desire and thus starts the brain into a cycle innovation... Read More

Plato to Bushco

The Neoplatonic Hierarchy:The twentieth century has seen a lot of mega-corporate and bureaucratic growth. The old top-down or Platonic hierarchy form of control has been exposed to... Read More