I always enjoy Alain de Botton’s work. He’s insightful, he’s prolific, and among the writers I follow, he cares the most about helping us become better people, to reach for our better angels.
Some people may call his work “pop philosophy”, but what’s wrong with that? Those very same people might benefit most from engaging with his questions and observations.
I recently watched his below TED talk on how to think about success, and wanted to share my notes with y’all. For more on Alain, here’s my initial post. In the timelines of our lives, mine would have an arrow pointing to early 2012 with the label “started reading Alain de Botton.”
Notes
- snobbery is when you only know a little bit about someone but draw much larger conclusions about them
- iconic question:
“what do you do?” - if we could all be like our mothers, who don’t care if we’re successful and accept us unconditionally
- we’re not by nature materialistic, we simply live in a society where emotional rewards are pegged to material goods; when you see a Ferrari driver, don’t criticize them for being greedy, because they’re actually communicating that they’re incredibly vulnerable and in need of love
- we’ve done away with the caste system and we’re told that anyone can achieve anything, which generates envy
- envy: when you can’t relate to them, you can’t envy them (which is why you don’t even the Queen of England, and why de Botton believes you should never go to a school reunion :)
- any vision of success needs to admit what you’ll lose out on
- why we love nature: in part, an escape from the human anthill
- in the Middle Ages, the word for someone at the bottom of society was an “unfortunate”, which describes the lack of control in their life station
make sure your ideas of success are yours : “it’s bad enough to not get what you want…it’s even worse to get what you want, after all this hard work, only to realize it may not be what you wanted all along”- think of your ideal dad – someone who’s tough but gentle – tough line to straddle