Subscribe to Next World TV
Your e-mail address is kept absolutely privateWe make it easy to unsubscribe at any time
Next World TV
Common Sense Solutions - Starting Now
A Healthier, Gentler Philosophy Of Success
We make it easy to unsubscribe at any time
- Navigation:
- Home
- Back
- More videos like this
Don't Drink The "Success" Kool Aid!
Advertisement
He argues we pay a hidden price for this notion that we should all be able to succeed and that merit is accorded fairly to all across the board. We are more unforgiving in the face of lesser success: we view it as failure.
We judge ourselves and each other, and the result is a lot of low self esteem coursing through the system. This was not part of the human condition throughout history, suffering, yes, of course but people didn't expect to transcend their station in life through sheer willpower and feel like failures if they didn't. He points out that there are more suicides in developed countries than anywhere else in the world, and he ties that to the worship of the idea that we can all be successful if we only apply ourselves. If we own our success, we must own our failures.
Life is not fair at all. Bad things happen randomly to impede our planned course and best intentions.
An interesting point he makes is that today's society worships mankind's accomplishments, whereas traditional societies worshipped something transcendent, a God, natural forces and spirits. This focus on ourselves as heros and gods adds to the unnatural pressure to self actualize, to succeed.
He offers us a way to view our lives and our work more generously, regardless of the "results" that society measures. A healthy message indeed!
--Bibi Farber
This video was produced by Ted Talks
For more information on Alain de Button visit: www.alaindebotton.com
