When your self-worth depends on what you achieve
When Googling someone’s name, you’re often directed to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more information about this individual. But what do these platforms actually tell you? They reveal plenty about achievements, job titles, educational backgrounds, and the number of people they know. They showcase numerous photos of the cool places they visited, with the individual usually disproportionally in the foreground.
Let’s also consider the carefully curated collection of technologically enhanced selfies. These might reveal something about the levels of narcissism in these individuals; however, beyond that, they provide little insight into the kind of person we’re actually dealing with. Our focus, and sometimes obsession, with status, accomplishments, and work—rather than with people and their characters and actual well-being—reflects what we value as a society. We’re obsessed with achievement, trapped in a cycle where one’s latest success measures personal worth.
This fixation raises a crucial question: Have we stopped recognizing each other’s inherent value, seeing ourselves merely as products of our accomplishments? And if so, how does this impact our behavior and well-being? This video explores the predicament of basing our self-worth on our achievements and if there’s anything we can do to escape this cycle.
We are all human beings, aren’t we? We’re humans because we are, meaning our innate humanness makes us human. So why does society often dehumanize those who don’t meet expected performance standards, labeling them as ‘losers’ or ‘failures’? Why does it seem that human value is based not on our humanity but on how well we meet society’s expectations?
To be human, being human isn’t enough these days. To be human, we have to achieve, conform, and display ourselves doing so. Thus, we could say that we’ve stopped seeing each other as human beings and started regarding each other as ‘human doings.’ A ‘human doing’ has little or no inherent worth. Its value depends on what it achieves. It doesn’t derive its identity from being but from doing, or better, from conforming to what its surroundings deem worthy of doing.
Current society is very much geared toward achievement, especially in the material sense. We tend to admire people who make a lot of money, are successful in their careers, and have fancy job titles attached to their LinkedIn profiles. We judge others and ourselves based on what we achieve. Hence, when meeting someone, the cardinal question is: “So, what do you do?”
Of course, this question doesn’t refer to what we do in our leisure time, our spiritual development, our social life, and how we treat others. No, this question almost always points to what we do for a living: our position among the working, our rank within the career-pursuing masses. Funnily enough, as this question is often asked, most people have their elevator pitches ready as if they are regurgitating their own personal product summaries, concisely demonstrating their usefulness.
The asker of the question must view one’s position as valuable or, at least, interesting, as one’s estimation in the asker’s eyes depends on it. So, you’re cleaning toilets? Okay, your rank is somewhere between the unemployed and a McDonald’s cook. I’m sure you’ll get along well. Ah, you’re a product manager? Now, we’re talking. You can sit at the cool kid’s table between the senior marketing employee and the startup entrepreneur.
So, you’re a YouTuber? How’s that going for you? Oh, do you mean full-time? Wait, two million followers? Ahh, I’m not sure which table I should assign you to. How much money do you make a month? And is YouTube an actual career? We’re constantly estimating each other’s worth. And the common denominator is achievement.
In a society like this, which bases one’s value so heavily on one’s accomplishments, many start to base their self-worth on them. American psychologist Leon Festinger proposed the ‘Social comparison theory,’ which explains that individuals compare themselves to others as a form of measurement and self-assessment to determine where they stand. We can see this happen on social media, for example, when it comes to beauty standards, the ongoing cycle of comparison, and the effects of this on self-esteem and self-worth.
We can also apply this to achievement. The so-called ‘rat race’ is an example; it’s a glorified pursuit of status, money, and material objects. Today’s hustle culture is a rat race on steroids: always achieving, never enough, always being on one’s ‘purpose,’ which often refers to someone earning a fortune by dropshipping or selling overpriced courses on YouTube. And those who promote this hustle culture the loudest often profit just by selling that idea: their hustle is selling you the dream of hustling.
As a culture, we don’t seem to understand the irony of all this madness: that we’re willing to spend our already hard-earned money on courses teaching us a lifestyle of endless, self-defeating toil. We’re eager to become slaves and even willing to pay for it. And so, many young men and women desperately seek out some internet guru who’s making bank just by dictating them to work their asses off and constantly ‘crush it.’ But for what? For the ‘clacking of tongues,’ as the ancient Romans would say.
We do it because society then perceives us as valuable, and our worth in other people’s eyes increases as our achievements surge. In his book ‘Burnout Society,’ South Korean-born German philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes how we’ve transitioned from a disciplinary society to an achievement society, saying: “Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society. Also, its inhabitants are no longer ‘obedience-subjects’ but ‘achievement-subjects.’ They are entrepreneurs of themselves.”
According to Han, a disciplinary society mainly tells people what they cannot do, while an achievement society emphasizes what people can do. Therefore, the disciplinary society has a negative orientation, while the achievement society has a positive orientation. The affirmation “Yes, we can” is the central tenet of this society. It tells us about all the things we can do and achieve, the great things we can become, all the material stuff we can have, the status we can attain, and the praise we can get from that.
It’s the dream of ‘unlimited can’ that we can become everything we want if we work hard. While a disciplinary society imposes work ethic on the people by means of force and penalties, an achievement society does it by selling a dream and incentives. Surprisingly, perhaps, the positive approach is more effective and efficient. We not only work harder, but we’re also intrinsically motivated to work ourselves into an early grave. We’re more effective slaves that don’t need masters, as we’re constantly whipping ourselves.
At most, we hand the whips to these motivational gurus and let them whip some ‘grinding’ and ‘hustling’ in us. The harmful effects of the achievement society are also apparent. Aside from the psychological strain and, eventually, burnout, this ongoing pursuit of achievement leads to (according to Han) could also undermine one’s self-worth. When society’s relentless positivity tells us we should all constantly strive to be happy and successful, when people measure each other based on productivity and success, what does that mean for those who don’t conform to these ideals?
Let’s quote another passage from Han’s book, saying: “Disciplinary society is still governed by no. Its negativity produces madmen and criminals. In contrast, achievement society creates depressives and losers.” Not achieving in an achievement society is akin to societal blasphemy. The losers and failures are the ultimate sinners. Of course, you’ll feel bad about yourself when considered a modern-day untouchable.
And so, it’s not just the dream that motivates us to achieve; it’s also the nightmare of being perceived as less, for example, the neck-bearded loser living in his mom’s basement playing video games, being the meme representing more or less the bottom you can reach as a man. The desire to outshine others, the emphasis on self-optimization, and the constant showcasing of ourselves on social media align with the sickness of our age: narcissism.
‘Narcissism’ is today’s buzzword for a reason: it’s because people across the board have indeed been becoming increasingly narcissistic. We often demonize these people for being narcissists, but to what extent can we blame them? In environments that push people into becoming personal ‘brands,’ always busy spotlighting themselves and competing for admiration, isn’t the emergence of widespread narcissism understandable?
There’s a difference between narcissistic tendencies and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or NPD). I’ll focus on narcissistic tendencies, such as a grandiose sense of self-importance, self-absorption, and the need for excessive admiration. So, with ‘narcissist,’ I refer to someone with such tendencies. That said, I think we can consider the narcissist the ultimate hero of the achievement society.
After all, his (or her) self almost entirely depends on how others perceive them in terms of status, importance, value, et cetera. Their estimation in the eyes of others (or at least, how they think others see them) is their sense of self. And so, the only way for this sense of self to survive is by fully engaging in the achievement society: to be the fastest rat in the rat race, outshine all in terms of beauty, or simply put, achieve the most in any chosen area.
And they don’t shun exploiting others without remorse, as the goal is what counts, regardless of the means. The narcissist lives in a bubble: they’re the absolute centers of their microcosms, and others serve mainly to admire or to be used. Sadly enough, our current culture hardly penalizes the behavior of these people. On the contrary, we tend to celebrate the braggadocious, pompous go-getter who often lacks morals or the self-obsessed Instagram model amassing likes and comments.
Today, being a narcissist pays. According to Han, it’s not that these narcissists have created the achievement society; it’s the achievement society that breeds narcissists, as it rewards behaviors that align with narcissistic traits. When your self-worth depends on what you achieve, you’ll feel worthy when you accomplish what you think you need to but unworthy when you don’t.
We love ourselves based on our performance because the world loves us based on our performance. And so, maintaining our self-worth requires constant striving for success. Achievement isn’t a bad thing in itself. Humanity enjoys many of its past achievements today. But the “positivity” of constant success and achievement is only one side of life.
We can’t be successful all the time. We can’t be constantly achieving. If we try, we’ll eventually pay the price. Life also consists of failure, achieving nothing, and basically anything else that doesn’t entail success and accomplishment. Also, for a significant part, achievement and success lie outside of our control, meaning that our ‘worth’ largely depends on circumstances not up to us. But basing our self-worth on circumstances we have such limited control over puts us in an unreliable position.
After all, as long as circumstances allow us to attain societal standards and people acknowledge our achievements, we feel good about ourselves. But if we cannot comply for reasons not in our control, people see us as losers nonetheless, and our self-worth goes down the drain as well. But what’s ‘worth’ anyway? Isn’t someone’s or something’s value subjective? Don’t we consider something valuable because we deem it so?
Of course, it’s challenging not to chase what society demands. And it’s probably even more difficult to deal with the consequences of doing so. However, won’t generating self-worth from something more stable and attainable make it more healthy and robust? What about an inherent sense of value based on the fact we’re human beings, not just ‘human doings?’
What about self-worth based on pursuing what we (not others) deem important in life? We could find fulfillment in other sources. However, tapping into these sources requires the strength and courage to deviate from the world’s opinion. And for most of us, that’s easier said than done. Thank you for watching.