Status Anxiety
“ If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn’t call it genius.”
One of the most helpful books I read this year was Status Anxiety. The premise is, and I’m summarizing, here, that most of us will never be in the top 2%. It’s called the 2% for a reason. And while those in the 2% certainly worked hard and maybe had some natural talent, they are in the 2% because they were lucky.
However, this is America, and we’re told “anything is possible if you just believe” and “you can be anything you want to be” and “follow your dreams and your dream will come true.”
This positive mindset does not take into account economic situations, family dynamics, personal hurdles, and just good, old-fashioned life.
We tell the outlier stories as if they are heroes, but if you pay attention, most of these outliers experience equal parts active participation and a series of events they had no control over. They were in the right place at the right time, knew the right person at the right moment, had a parent willing to sacrifice everything—moving across the country, giving up their career or their marriage, etc.
Let’s face it, most of us don’t have parents like that and most of us don’t have this sheer luck the outliers seem to experience.
The book doesn’t say the outliers got to where they are on only luck, just that circumstances were a huge factor for these special people. They want us to believe, “I’m just like you” and it’s true. The hand they were dealt was different than the other 98%, but there was nothing inherent that made them special enough to receive this luck—even hard work.
However, when we’re told we can have that 2% status if we work hard enough, and then it doesn’t come—ever—or we sacrifice our souls in pursuit of this, it can lead to anxiety and depression, and these certainly don’t help our status.
Just look around, depression is endemic (and it was this way before the global pandemic).
I found this book to be extremely liberating. I am someone who wants to succeed at the things I care about. I like school so I want As. I like writing so I want to be the best writer there is. I’m a minister, so I want my ministry to help the most people possible.
But someone gave me the cold hard truth in the form of a little blue book called Status Anxiety. I received the message loud and clear: “Katherine, you will never be the best and you will never be in the top 2%. If you are, it will be predominately because you got very lucky and circumstances outside of your control happened to you, rather than you creating them yourself.”
So this realization of never, or very unlikely, led me to conclude that these things I love are in my life because I love them. Seeking the status of “The Best” is a waste of time. What might be more helpful is determining what is “the best” for me at this time in my life. Which will not be “the best” in five more years once I’ve been working and learning for that amount of time.
Do I stop trying to be published because I’ll never have “The Best” book?
Do I stop podcasting because my podcast won’t be “The Best” podcast ever?
Do I shut down my nonprofit because it’ll only reach a small demographic of people?
Well, there’s a chance this could be the conclusion for some, but for me? I’m not trying to seek that status everyone says I can have if I just work and believe hard enough. This goal is not realistic and while I would never tell my own children to stop working hard, I would tell them to work hard because they care about what they do. If they become an olympian who wins a gold medal, great. But if they never make it out of the jr. league, that’ll be fine, too.
There are plenty of folks in the top 2% who will talk about all the stress they experienced trying to get ahead. Then one day, they realized all the stress was taking the joy out of what they did. So they shifted to working hard because they loved it, and this—rather than hurting their chances—actually helped them get where they are today.
This could be translated to: work hard because you love it and then you’ll become famous.
Somehow, I don’t think this is what the 2% is trying to say—but it makes good TV.
Photo by Christine Roy on Unsplash