Paxil for the Soul

Ah, self-pity. The 3rd great American past time, just under self-loathing and buying things on credit. I have a nice enough life and yet I spend a greater portion of my time than I want to admit wondering how things could have been different, and if they were different if maybe they wouldn't be just a tiny bit better? Mostly I do this out loud to my boyfriend while we are both trying to sleep. One night, sick of listening to me go on about what might have been had I not quit ballet lessons when I was 11, he rolled over. "Status Anxiety. Alain de Botton." he said "It's time now." In this book, de Botton briefly sketches out the evolution of status hierarchy across the world, from the Romans to the Amazon to turn-of-the-century France up to now. He explains why we want status (we want to feel loved, cared about, noticed, significant) and compares it to the desire for a lover (whom we seek out for all the same reasons). Modern Western signifiers of status - money made, not inherited, elite jobs, security- are largely arbitrary and entirely meaningless when held up against the only actual truth there is: in 1,000 years no one will know any of us by name. Solutions to status anxiety include realizing the relative insignificance of your own accomplishments, failures and ambitions , reading Gertrude Stein and Tolstoy (in particular the Death of Ivan Ilych) , and the understanding that "success" is a word with no objective meaning, and nobody else's life will make you any happier than your own. These are things we all know, but they sound so much clearer and more believable when explained by an intelligent man with a British accent.