How often in today's world do we compare ourselves to others and feel bad about ourselves? We often look at our careers and wonder why we aren't were we want to be? According to de- Botton's TED Talk titled "A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success" we find ourselves experiencing career crises because we live in a world where we constantly told we can do anything which creates a environment in which we are the drivers of our success which makes failure much harder to deal with. The fear of failure is created by fear of being ridiculed and judged by others. In a meritocracy we are led to believe that certain people deserve to be at the top, and our failures are indicators that our hardships are deserved. This fear is amplified by the fact that we are often envious of those who are similar to use, but our more successful which leads us to feel we are not meeting this imaginary timeline that is set up by society. Now that I have talked about the fear of failure and envy I will now talk about where our expectations come from and things we can learn from tragedy.
The question to propose is where do our expectations for ourselves come from? Do they come from inside ourselves or are they inflicted on us by society and our parents? According to de- Botton's TED Talk we absorb expectations from the media and everything in between. A example of this in today's world would be the pressure put on women to stay thin, and look like the models put in magazines. We can see the effect of this expectation in that 20 million women in the United States suffer from a eating disorder at some point in their lives. De- Botton also mentions we absorb expectations from our parents. For example, when a kid's parents were star athletes there is a certain pressure put on their children to live up to that legacy and surpass it. The best way to combat career crisis is to look at whether our expectations our are own. Today's society can learn from tragedy by developing more empathy for our fellow man because we can never truly know a person's value.
The question to propose is where do our expectations for ourselves come from? Do they come from inside ourselves or are they inflicted on us by society and our parents? According to de- Botton's TED Talk we absorb expectations from the media and everything in between. A example of this in today's world would be the pressure put on women to stay thin, and look like the models put in magazines. We can see the effect of this expectation in that 20 million women in the United States suffer from a eating disorder at some point in their lives. De- Botton also mentions we absorb expectations from our parents. For example, when a kid's parents were star athletes there is a certain pressure put on their children to live up to that legacy and surpass it. The best way to combat career crisis is to look at whether our expectations our are own. Today's society can learn from tragedy by developing more empathy for our fellow man because we can never truly know a person's value.