THESIS: As a product of society’s “equal” meritocracy, we must find a scale for our actions by comparing our successes and failures to others, creating status anxiety, resulting in our idea of success being relative to our peer’s success. We base our own self worth and value too much on the outside influences and how others view us. We can no longer look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are, we unconsciously compare ourselves to what is “perfect” is based on ideals from our friends, family, and the media. We are constantly being presented with the image of perfection and the steps and rules needed to achieve it. Success has become relative. When we initially do something that we believe is a success and the public deems it unspectacular, we no longer feel pride and instead feel that we are adequate. America’s social system is loosely based on a meritocracy, with its central idea being that if everyone is presented with the same opportunities to succeed, than everything is equal and fair. If we cannot succeed, it is only our own incompetence that we can …show more content…
The denotation and connotation of “average” are contradictory. Meritocracy would seem to help, assuring us that we all have our place based off of our own strengths and weaknesses, but now we compare everything trying to find a scale from others we interact with. In How To Land Your Kid in Therapy by Lori Gottlieb, Lizzie is introduced to the reader as a successful writer with a picture-perfect life. She appears to have everything and more, but she doesn’t feel as happy as she says she should. When we are indoctrinated with the idea of all of our work being perfect, it becomes so ingrained that we can no longer function without the constant adulations. We lose our internal sense of happiness, and even if we achieve success or accomplish a goal, we don’t feel fulfilled. When we leave our parents, any success we feel is mitigated by the lack of