Solutions to Status Anxiety

Attempting to rid life of status anxiety does not mean removing yourself from the hierarchical structures that exist in society that cause the original anxiety; this seems to be an impossible task. Instead, it involves a long process of recognizing the root symptoms of the anxiety, and rather than temporarily medicating it, try to the best of your ability to remove the cause for those symptoms. The most important realization is learning that the playing field is level on the other side of the mirror, no matter what is reflected of the world on this side. Although the structure might create a way for modern society to stay organized, in the end, we are all made of the same and will disintegrate into the same components. If you know that you can take half-steps to a certain fixed point and reach it, but know that this is impossible in theory, then it becomes easier to understand the insignificance of a tiny physical difference or a lesser rank of status in comparison to the imponderable universe.

[Prompted by concluding Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety.]