Would you mind sharing this newsletter with three achievers in your life? I’d love to see if this writing resonates with an audience beyond my friend group.
A few years ago, I started noticing a persistent and peculiar trend in headlines:
“A 29-year-old private jet broker reveals how he built a career in luxury lifestyle from the ground up and landed celebrity clients”
“This 18-year-old runs his own startup, cycles 23 km a day, and gets top grades on just 4 hours of sleep”
“How these self-made billionaires under 40 made their first million”
Self made, young, productive— and here’s how you could do it, too. It’s an intoxicating mix of ideas.
A heightened sense of possibility
The last few decades have brought more economic prosperity and quality of life than ever before. While our country and world suffer from inequality and disparity, the average well-being across factors like health, education, and standard of living has increased significantly.
Certainly, life is nicer now than it was several centuries ago when our ability to survive depended upon competition for finite resources. The smaller the population around you, the likelier you were to avoid starvation. This was the grim reality of the Malthusian economy. After the Black Death wiped out nearly half of the English population, those who survived were doubly rewarded with an increase in wages. Life was truly a zero-sum game.
Fast forward to today. We live in a society where material provision has drastically increased. We have access to endless varieties of toothpastes and breakfast cereals and convenient food and that would’ve boggled even an aristocrat’s mind. The size of even a modest suburban home would’ve been unthinkable for a middle class of the past.
Amidst this plentifulness, those of us who are fortunate enough not to worry about the basic necessities of life have the privilege of shifting our attention to something shinier and equally urgent: our status and worth in society.
Why achievement is higher stakes than ever
Alain de Botton, author and founder of The School of Life, poignantly describes why we’ve become achievement obsessed in his book Status Anxiety. Societies of the past had no to little agency over their success. As a peasant in a feudal system, hope of rising to lordship or royalty was non-existent. But even when income was scarce, one could find solace in religion and the knowledge that regardless of status on Earth, they were equal with kings in the eyes of God. And as long as they lived virtuously, there would be a promising afterlife waiting for them.
Contrast this to modern society where many of us have significantly more than the basic requirements for living. While social mobility still has its limits, we cling to "rags to riches” anecdotes, stories of modern-day peasants who actually did make it to kingship through hard work, gumption, and a dash of luck. On top of that, we have access to technology that promises a level playing field for anyone who want to learn, create, or build wealth.
We’ve acquired a newfound responsibility. We can no longer throw our hands up and say “oh well” at the serfdom. Failure —as society tells us— means we were simply too lazy, too undisciplined, and lacking of charm and resourcefulness to make use of the opportunities available. The new paradigm provides us with resources and asks us to earn our worth, promising handsome rewards if we do.
The proliferation of self-help books, hustle literature, hacker schools, and rags to riches stories produces both exhilarating hope and deep-seated anxiety. We ask ourselves: “What will I do with all this potential?” And whisper: “I better not screw this up. I better make something of myself.”
And you could do it, too
“The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all that we might be.”
— Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety
De Botton argues that we don’t compare ourselves to just anyone. We compare ourselves to those in our reference group, those who we identify with.
It just so happens that in a highly connected world, our circles of association are wider than ever. The next Mark Zuckerberg might’ve lived down the hall from us in college. Celebrities share glimpses of their day on Instagram, and suddenly a life of luxury doesn’t feel so far away. LinkedIn won’t stop asking you to congratulate former coworkers on their fresh promotions.
As the number of self-made rich people surpasses those with inherited wealth, the pressure to make something of ourselves increases.
Says De Botton:
“It's probably as unlikely that you would nowadays become as rich and famous as Bill Gates, as it was unlikely in the 17th century that you would accede to the ranks of the French aristocracy. But the point is, it doesn't feel that way. It's made to feel, by magazines and other media outlets, that if you've got energy, a few bright ideas about technology, a garage— you, too, could start a major thing.”
The myths of meritocracy
The first myth is that society is meritocratic in the first place. It’s a tempting idea, especially for the privileged, because it means we got here by being hard-working, smart, and valuable people.
But evidence abounds that the rich do get richer: from wealthy parents gaming the college admissions system to blatant racism to the subtle insidiousness of unconscious bias.
Meritocracy dies by a thousand cuts, and these cuts are more commonplace than we think. I haven’t gotten a single job out of pure merit; there has always been a warm introduction or credibility from a previous brand on my resume.
Louis Menand writes in The New Yorker:
We find it unseemly when someone is hired because his or her mom or dad made a phone call. We think that’s unmeritocratic. But we are not, usually, taken aback when we learn that someone got a job interview through a college roommate or an alumni connection, even though that is also unmeritocratic. We accept that those connections, along with connections that students make with their professors, are among the things you “earn” by getting into a college. It’s one of the rewards for merit.
The second myth is that merit can and should be measured by a small number of criteria— namely wealth, power, and Twitter followership. Search for meritocracy, and you’ll find a fairly one-dimensional view. Rarely do we associate the word “merit” with being a good person living a happy life and contributing positively to their community.
It’s a perfect bind, isn’t it?
A narrow definition of merit, a sticky belief that success is self-made and self-driven, easy access to social comparison, and the time and energy to fixate one’s attention on seeking self worth.
It’s no wonder being a high achiever can cause us to curl into a ball of stress.
If you’ve acquired the wisdom to escape this bind: kudos. I’d love to hear your story. If you, like me, are still on this journey: continue reading as we examine together.
In the next post, we’ll explore together the antidotes to the dilemma of meritocracy. How can we reconcile the urgency of achievement with the self-acceptance needed to live a good life?
Reflection #03: Over the next week, notice when you feel a pang of self-consciousness, comparison with others, or urgency to do more. Write down and reflect: What spurred these moments, and what are you saying to yourself?
Love and health,
