Alain De Botton is one of the foremost experts today in the field of creativity and lateral thinking. He has written a book called ‘Status Anxiety’, which is a very intuitive insight into many of the reasons behind modern day stress and anxiety, the greatest causes of discontent and unrest in the world today. When you boil it down it comes back to our primitive fight or flight emotion.

Status Anxiety is derived from our still present caveman survival sense of kill or be killed. In those days, the worry of having enough food and water and having shelter from the elements, was a genuinely life threatening issue. However in modern western society, the threat of enough food and shelter has generally been removed. But whilst the human race has moved forward in leaps and bounds, our natural instincts, which change through evolution, change much slower and have not kept pace. That leaves us still with an unconscious sense of, ‘I need more of everything to make sure I survive, and am seen as stronger than my rivals’. That is the instinct on which all advertising and consumerism is based.

The need for Status is simply the instinct to survive and be strong, but which has been converted from the essential needs of food and shelter, to a modern day version of needing to be bigger and better than the next person, in order to survive. To have an opinion on everything and defend that with all my will, regardless of how irrational it may seem.

This need to have more, always be right, and feel that others see me as strong and better than they are, is the root cause of today’s anxiety and stress. This unconscious need does not only apply to an individual but it also applies to societal groups. Look at religion…...”My god is the right god, yours is the wrong god therefore you will go to hell”.

The desire for ‘Status’ or being seen as stronger than the next person pervades all areas of our life and all interactions. However once this unconscious desire is recognized and can be seen for what it is, it can be dealt with over time. But if we remain unconscious of it, then it will always be a race to the top and it will be everyone else’s fault when we don’t make it.