heroic individualism: an ongoing game of one-upmanship, against both yourself and others, paired with the limiting belief that measurable achievement is the only arbiter of success. Even if you do a good job hiding it on the outside, with heroic individualism you chronically feel like you never quite reach the finish line that is lasting fulfillmen

We are a culture that has made an idol of “work” to such an extent that in this culture, more than in most, people are identified with their work, their positions, and their financial security. This enslavement to society’s demands is rampant, out of perceived necessity and sometimes from misplaced ambitions. We have to acknowledge how much our ind

We internalize the message of what Byung-Chul Han has called the “achievement society” where the primary goal of a life is to constantly improve, nudged to become “entrepreneurs of [our]selves.”⁠1 But constantly trying to be “better” can push us toward goals that are not ours, robbing us of our connection to ourselves.

The Consumer Story goes like this: each of us is out for ourselves, and that is the way it should be. We are individuals, narrowly defined and independent of one another; the ‘self’ might extend as far as our immediate family, but no further.