Nothing Is Ever Good Enough Analysis

Nothing is Ever Good Enough
Alain de Botton, author of Status Anxiety, argues in his chapter “Equality, Expectation, and Envy” that no matter how many riches are bestowed upon someone, they will still want more. In his analysis, Botton covers the main reasons for this greed, arguing that the want for equality, expectation, and being so envious of other people in their “reference group” is causing people to not be happy with the things they already possess (25). Botton organizes his evidence in his chapter by stating 13 key points. After his first point explaining his thesis, he begins to give evidence in the second and third points. In these points, Botton talks about the way people decide what is enough. People compare themselves to others that they consider to be equals and if they obtain less than their equals, then they feel like what they have isn’t enough. Likewise, people do not envy those whom they deem as superior. He gives the example that if everyone in your group of equals is the same height, then everyone is happy, but if someone gains a little more height, then it makes the others envious (25-27).
After he explains his thought behind whom people tend to envy, Botton goes on

This relates back to points one and two. Botton explains that James thought that we based feelings of success or humiliation on things that we put our effort into. Botton claims that James would be upset if he met someone who knew more about psychology than him because he took pride in his knowledge of psychology. James also created a great equation for expressing this thought. James believed that self-esteem was equal to success divided by pretentions (35-36). Botton then, in the eighth point, uses James equation to tell everyone that self-esteem is low in people because no one has the pretentions to do anything because of fear of failure