Notes & Highlights for Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton

their job title, the business school they went to, the number of assistants they have, the location of their parking space, the grants they earn, their access to the CEO, the size of their paycheck, or the number of fans they have.

Certainly, it was clear that achieving wealth or status didn’t cause the problem to go away – which makes sense, since in the modern world, external success is often the result of being even more enmeshed in the desperate game of catch-up than everyone else. ‘Most successful people,’ as the entrepreneur and investor Andrew Wilkinson has observed, ‘

Furthermore, if a person makes the error of identifying self with his or her work, with accomplishments, success, income, or being a good family provider, economic circumstances beyond the individual’s control that lead to the failure of a business or the loss of a job may also lead to depression or acute demoralization.

indeed, I want to suggest that humiliation is always a form of not getting it, and that humiliation sheds a unique and horrifying light on what not getting it might be about.