TED | 温和的成功哲学：败中求胜

00:12

我经常对事业感到恐慌，周日下午，晚霞洒满天空，理想和现实的差距，是这样残酷，令我沮丧的只想抱头痛哭，我提出这件事是因为，我认为不只有我这么感觉。你可能不这么认为，但我感觉我们活在一个充满，事业恐慌的时代，就在我们认为我们已经理解，我们的人生和事业时，真实便来恐吓我们。

00:48

现在或许比以前更容易过上好生活，但却比以前更难保持冷静，或不为事业感到焦虑，今天我想要检视，我们对事业感到焦虑，的一些原因，为何我们会变成事业焦虑的囚徒，不时抱头痛哭，折磨人的因素之一是，我们身边的那些势利鬼。

01:15

对那些来访牛津大学的外国友人，我有一个坏消息，这里的人都很势利，有时候英国以外的人会想象，势利是英国人特有的个性，来自那些乡间别墅和头衔爵位，坏消息是，并不只是这样，势利是一个全球性的问题，我们是个全球性的组织，这是个全球性的问题，它确实存在。势利是什么？势利是以一小部分的你，来判别你的全部价值，那就是势利。

01:46

今日最主要的势利，就是对职业的势利，你在派对中不用一分钟就能体会到，当你被问到这个21世纪初，最有代表性的问题：你是做什么的？你的答案将会决定对方接下来的反应，对方可能对你在场感到荣幸，或是开始看表然后想个借口离开。

02:05

势利鬼的相反，是你的母亲，（笑声），不一定是你我的母亲，而是一个理想母亲的想象，一个永远义无反顾的爱你，不在乎你是否功成名就的人，不幸地，大部分世人都不怀有这种母爱，大部分世人决定要花费多少时间，给于多少爱，不一定是浪漫的那种爱，虽然那也包括在内，世人所愿意给我们的关爱、尊重，取决于，我们的社会地位。

02:33

这就是为什么我们如此在乎事业和成就，以及看重金钱和物质的原因，我们时常被告知我们处在一个物质挂帅的时代，我们都是贪婪的人，我并不认为我们特别看重物质，而是活在一个，物质能带来大量情感反馈，的时代，我们想要的不是物质，而是背后的情感反馈，这赋予奢侈品一个崭新的意义，下次你看到那些开着法拉利跑车的人，你不要想“这个人很贪婪”，而是“这是一个无比脆弱、急需爱的人”，也就是说，（笑声），同情他们，不要鄙视他们。

03:13

还有一些其他的，（笑声），还有一些其他理由，让我们比过去，更难获得平静，这有些矛盾因为拥有自己的事业，是一件不错的事，但同时，人们也从未对自己的短暂一生，有过这么高的期待，这个世界用许多方法告诉我们，我们无所不能，我们不再受限于阶级，而是只要靠着努力，就能攀上我们想到的高度，这是个美丽的理想，出于一种生而平等的精神，我们基本上是平等的，没有任何明显的阶级存在。

03:50

这造成了一个严重的问题，这个问题是嫉妒，嫉妒在今日是一种禁忌话题，但这个社会上最普遍的感受，便是嫉妒，嫉妒来自生而平等的精神。这么说吧，我想在场的各位，或是观看这个影片的众位，很少有人会嫉妒英国女皇，虽然她比我们都更加富有，住在一个巨大的房子里，我们不会嫉妒她的原因是她太怪异了，她太怪了，我们无法想象自己与她扯上关系，她的语调令人发噱，来自一个奇怪的地方，我们与她毫无关联。当你认为你与这个人毫无关联时，你便不会嫉妒。

04:29

越是两个年龄、背景相近的人，越容易陷入嫉妒的苦海，所以千万避免去参加同学会，因为没有比同学，更强烈的参照点了，今日社会的问题是，它把全世界变成了一个学校，每个人都穿着牛仔裤，每个人都一样，但，并非如此，当生而平等的概念遇上现实中悬殊的不平等，巨大的压力就出现了。

04:56

今日你变得像比尔-盖茨一样，有钱又出名的机会，大概就跟你在十七世纪，成为法国贵族一样困难，但重点是，感觉却差别很大，今日的杂志和其它媒体让我们感觉，只要你有冲劲、对科技有一些新颖的想法，再加上一个车库，你就可以踏上比尔的道路，（笑声），我们可以从书店中感受到这些问题所造成的后果，当你像我一样到大型书店里的，自我帮助书籍类，如果你分析现在出版的这些自我帮助类书籍，它们基本上分成两种，第一种告诉你”你做得到！你能成功！没有不可能！“，另外一种则教导你如何处理，我们婉转地称呼为“缺乏自信”，或是直接了当地称为“自我感觉极差”。

05:41

这两者中间有着绝对的关联，一个告诉人们他们无所不能的社会，和缺乏自信有着绝对的关联，这是另一件好事，也会带来坏影响的例子，还有一些其它原因造成我们对事业，对我们在世上的地位感到前所未有的焦虑，再一次地，它也和好的概念有关，这个好概念叫做“功绩主义”。

06:05

现在，无论是左倾还是右倾的政治人物，都同意“功绩主义”是个好事，我们应该尽力让我们的社会崇尚“功绩主义”，换句话说，一个崇尚“功绩主义”的社会是什么样的呢？一个崇尚功绩主义的社会相信，如果你有才能、精力、和技术，你就会飞黄腾达，没有什么能阻止你，这是个美好的想法。问题是，如果你打从心里相信，那些在社会顶层的人都是精英，同时你也暗示着，以一种残忍的方法，相信那些在社会底层的人，天生就该在社会底层，换句话说，你在社会的地位不是偶然，而都是你配得的，这种想法让失败变得更残忍。

06:48

你知道，在中世纪的英国，但你遇见一个非常穷苦的人，你会认为他“不走运”，直接地说，那些不被幸运之神眷顾的人，不幸的人，今日，尤其在美国，如果人们遇见一些社会底层的人，他们被刻薄地形容成“失败者”，“不走运”和“失败者”中间有很大的差别，这表现了四百年的社会演变，我们对谁该为人生负责看法的改变，神不再掌握我们的命运，我们掌握自己的人生。

07:18

如果你做的很好，这是件令人愉快的事，相反的情况，就很令人沮丧，社会学家，Emil，Durkheim，分析发现，这提高了自杀率，追求个人主义的已发展国家的自杀率，高过于世界上其它地方，原因是人们把发生在自己身上的事情，全当作自己的责任，人们拥有成功，也拥有失败。

07:42

有什么方法可以解决刚才提到的，这些焦虑呢？是有的。我想提出几项，先说“功绩主义”，也就是相信每个人的地位忠实呈现他的能力，我认为这种想法太疯狂了，我可以支持所有相信这个想法的，无论是左倾还是右倾的政治家，我同样相信功绩主义，但我认为一个完全彻底以能力取决地位的社会，是个不可能的梦想。

08:08

这种我们能创造一个，每个人的能力都忠实地被分级，好的就到顶端，坏的就到底部，而且保证过程毫无差错，这是不可能的，这世上有太多偶然的契机，不同的机运，出身，疾病，从天而降的意外等等，我们却无法将这些因素分级，无法完全忠实的将人分级。

08:27

我很喜欢圣奥古斯丁在“上帝之城”里的一句话，他说“以社会地位评价人是一种罪”，用现在的口吻说，看一个人的名片来决定你是否要和他交谈，是罪，对圣奥古斯丁来说，人的价值不在他的社会地位，只有神可以决定一个人的价值，他将在天使围绕、小号奏鸣，天空破开的世界末日给于最后审判，如果你是像我一样的世俗论者，这想法太疯狂了，但这想法有它的价值。

08:55

换句话说，最好在你开口评论他人之前悬崖勒马，你很有可能不知道他人的真正价值，这是不可测的，于是我们不该为人下定论，还有另一种慰藉，当我们想象人生中的失败，我们恐惧的原因并不只是，失去收入，失去地位，我们害怕的是他人的评论和嘲笑，它的确存在。

09:21

今日世界上最会嘲笑人的，便是报纸，每天我们打开报纸，都能看到那些把生活搞砸的人，他们与错误对象共枕，使用错误药物，通过错误法案，种种，让人在茶余饭后拿来挖苦的新闻，这些人失败了，我们称他们为“失败者”，还有其它做法吗？西方传统给了我们一个光荣的选择，就是“悲剧”。

09:47

悲剧的艺术来自古希腊，西元前五世纪，这是一个专属于，描绘人类失败过程的艺术，同时也加入某种程度的同情，在现代生活并不常给于同情时，几年前我思考着这件事，我去见“周日运动期刊”，如果你还不认识这个小报，我建议你也别去读，我去找他们聊聊，西方艺术中最伟大的几个悲剧故事，我想知道他们会如何露骨地以新闻的方式，在周日下午的新闻台上，呈现这些经典悲剧故事。

10:24

我谈到他们从未耳闻的《奥赛罗》，他们啧啧称奇，（笑声），我要求他们以奥赛罗的故事写一句头条，他们写道“移民因爱生恨，刺杀参议员之女”，大头条，我告诉他们《包法利夫人》的故事，他们再一次感到惊异万分，写道“不伦购物狂信用欺诈，出墙妇女吞砒霜”，（笑声），我最喜欢的是，这些记者真的很有才，我最喜欢的是索福克勒斯的《俄狄浦斯王》，“与母亲的盲目性爱”。

10:59

如果同理心的一个极端，是这些八卦小报，另一个极端便是悲剧和悲剧艺术，我想说的是或许我们该从，悲剧艺术中学习，你不会说汉姆雷特是个失败者，虽然他失败了，他却不是一个失败者，我想这就是悲剧所要告诉我们的，也是我认为非常重要的一点。

11:22

现代社会让我们焦虑的，另一个缘故是，我们除了人类以外没有其它重心，我们是从古至今的第一个无神社会，除了我们自己以外，我们不膜拜任何事物，我们对自己评价极高，为什么不呢，我们把人送上月球，达成了许多不可思议的事，我们习惯崇拜自己。

11:41

我们的英雄是人类，这是一个崭新的情况，历史中大部分的社会重心，都是敬拜一位人类以外的灵体，神，自然力、宇宙，总之是人类以外的什么，我们逐渐失去了这种习惯，我想这也是我们越来越被大自然吸引的原因，虽然我们时常显示是为了健康，但我不这么认为，我认为是为了逃避人群的蚁丘，逃避人们的疯狂竞争，我们的戏剧化，这便是为什么我们如此喜欢看海、观赏冰山，从外太空观赏地球等等，我们希望重新和那些“非人类”的事物有所连接，那对我们来说很重要。

12:23

我一直在谈论成功和失败，成功的有趣之处是，我们时常以为我们知道成功是什么，如果我现在说，这个屏幕后面站着一个非常成功的人，你心里马上就会产生一些想法，你会想，这个人可能很有钱，在某些领域赫赫有名，我对成功的理解是，首先，我是一个对成功非常有兴趣的人，我想要成功，我总是想着“要怎样我才能更成功？”但当我渐渐长大，我越来越疑惑，究竟什么是“成功”的真正意义。

12:52

我对成功有一些观察，你不可能在所有事情上成功，我们常听到有关工作和休闲的平衡，鬼话。你不可能全部拥有。你就是不能。所有对成功的想象，必须承认他们同时也失去了一些东西，放弃了一些东西，我想一个智者能接受，如我所说，总是有什么是我们得不到的。

13:14

常常，我们对一个成功，人生的想象，不是来自我们自己，而是来自他人，如果你是个男人，你会以父亲做榜样，如果你是个女人，你会以母亲做榜样，精神分析已经重复说了80年，但很少有人真正听进去。但我的确相信这件事。

13:33

我们也会从电视、广告，各样的市场宣传中，得到我们对成功的想象，这些东西影响了我们，对我们自己的看法、我们想要什么，当我们听说银行业是个受人尊敬的行业，许多人便加入银行业，当银行业不再受人尊敬，我们便对银行业失去兴趣，我们很能接受建议。

13:56

我想说的是，我们不该放弃，我们对成功的想象，但必须确定那些都是我们自己想要的，我们应该专注于我们自己的目标，确定这目标是我们真正想要的，确定这个梦想蓝图出自自己笔下，因为得不到自己想要的已经够糟糕了，更糟糕的是，在人生旅程的终点，发觉你所追求的，从来就不是你真正想要的。

14:21

我必须在这里做个总结，但我真正想说的是，成功是必要的，但请接受自己怪异的想法，朝着自己对成功的定义出发，确定我们对成功的定义都是出于自己的真心，非常谢谢各位。

14:55

Chris，Anderson:说的真好。你要如何，与自己和解，把一个人称为失败者是糟糕的，但许多人都想掌握自己的生活，一个追求这些的社会，难免要有赢家和输家。

15:15

阿兰·德波顿:是的，我只是想提出在，输赢的过程中，有太多偶然，今日我们太讲求，所有事情的正义和公平，政治人物总是在谈论正义，我非常支持正义，我只是觉得那不可能，我们应该尽力，尽力去追求正义，但我们也应该记得，我们所面对的，无论在他们人生中发生过什么，偶然总是一个强烈的因素，我希望大家留一点空间这么想，不然真令人有一种幽闭恐怖症的感觉。

15:45

Chris，Anderson:我是说，你是否相信，在这种温和的哲学下，可以产生一个发达的经济？还是你认为那不可行？还是我们这样反复提醒人们也不甚重要？

15:57

阿兰·德波顿:梦魇是相信，恐吓人们是刺激他们发奋的最好办法，或是环境越残酷，就会有越多人接受挑战，你必须想，你的理想父亲是怎样的？你的理想父亲往往是严厉又温和的，虽然这界限很难画定，我们社会需要的模范性人物，是像一个理想父亲，不要走极端，不要完全集权、纯粹纪律，也不要模糊马虎，乱无规章，

16:32

Chris Anderson:阿兰·德波顿。

16:34

阿兰·德波顿：谢谢各位。

00:12

For me they normally happen, these career crises, often, actually, on a Sunday evening, just as the sun is starting to set, and the gap between my hopes for myself and the reality of my life starts to diverge so painfully that I normally end up weeping into a pillow. 

00:29

I'm mentioning all this -- I'm mentioning all this because I think this is not merely a personal problem; you may think I'm wrong in this, but I think we live in an age when our lives are regularly punctuated by career crises, by moments when what we thought we knew -- about our lives, about our careers -- comes into contact with a threatening sort of reality. 

00:47

It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living. It's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety. I want to look now, if I may, at some of the reasons why we might be feeling anxiety about our careers. Why we might be victims of these career crises, as we're weeping softly into our pillows. One of the reasons why we might be suffering is that we are surrounded by snobs. 

01:15

In a way, I've got some bad news, particularly to anybody who's come to Oxford from abroad. There's a real problem with snobbery, because sometimes people from outside the U.K. imagine that snobbery is a distinctively U.K. phenomenon, fixated on country houses and titles. The bad news is that's not true. Snobbery is a global phenomenon; we are a global organization, this is a global phenomenon. What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you, and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery. 

01:46

The dominant kind of snobbery that exists nowadays is job snobbery. You encounter it within minutes at a party, when you get asked that famous iconic question of the early 21st century, "What do you do?" According to how you answer that question, people are either incredibly delighted to see you, or look at their watch and make their excuses. 

02:05

Now, the opposite of a snob is your mother. 

02:10

Not necessarily your mother, or indeed mine, but, as it were, the ideal mother, somebody who doesn't care about your achievements. Unfortunately, most people are not our mothers. Most people make a strict correlation between how much time, and if you like, love -- not romantic love, though that may be something -- but love in general, respect -- they are willing to accord us, that will be strictly defined by our position in the social hierarchy. 

02:33

And that's a lot of the reason why we care so much about our careers and indeed start caring so much about material goods. You know, we're often told that we live in very materialistic times, that we're all greedy people. I don't think we are particularly materialistic. I think we live in a society which has simply pegged certain emotional rewards to the acquisition of material goods. It's not the material goods we want; it's the rewards we want. It's a new way of looking at luxury goods. The next time you see somebody driving a Ferrari, don't think, "This is somebody who's greedy." Think, "This is somebody who is incredibly vulnerable and in need of love." 

03:11

Feel sympathy, rather than contempt. 

03:13

There are other reasons -- 

03:16

There are other reasons why it's perhaps harder now to feel calm than ever before. One of these, and it's paradoxical, because it's linked to something that's rather nice, is the hope we all have for our careers. Never before have expectations been so high about what human beings can achieve with their lifespan. We're told, from many sources, that anyone can achieve anything. We've done away with the caste system, we are now in a system where anyone can rise to any position they please. And it's a beautiful idea. Along with that is a kind of spirit of equality; we're all basically equal. There are no strictly defined hierarchies. There is one really big problem with this, and that problem is envy. Envy, it's a real taboo to mention envy, but if there's one dominant emotion in modern society, that is envy. And it's linked to the spirit of equality. 

04:03

Let me explain. I think it would be very unusual for anyone here, or anyone watching, to be envious of the Queen of England. Even though she is much richer than any of you are, and she's got a very large house, the reason why we don't envy her is because she's too weird. 

04:19

She's simply too strange. We can't relate to her, she speaks in a funny way, she comes from an odd place. So we can't relate to her, and when you can't relate to somebody, you don't envy them. 

04:29

The closer two people are -- in age, in background, in the process of identification -- the more there's a danger of envy, which is incidentally why none of you should ever go to a school reunion, because there is no stronger reference point than people one was at school with. The problem of modern society is it turns the whole world into a school. Everybody's wearing jeans, everybody's the same. And yet, they're not. So there's a spirit of equality combined with deep inequality, which can make for a very stressful situation. 

04:55

It's probably as unlikely that you would nowadays become as rich and famous as Bill Gates, as it was unlikely in the 17th century that you would accede to the ranks of the French aristocracy. But the point is, it doesn't feel that way. It's made to feel, by magazines and other media outlets, that if you've got energy, a few bright ideas about technology, a garage -- you, too, could start a major thing. 

05:18

The consequences of this problem make themselves felt in bookshops. When you go to a large bookshop and look at the self-help sections, as I sometimes do -- if you analyze self-help books produced in the world today, there are basically two kinds. The first kind tells you, "You can do it! You can make it! Anything's possible!" The other kind tells you how to cope with what we politely call "low self-esteem," or impolitely call, "feeling very bad about yourself." 

05:41

There's a real correlation between a society that tells people that they can do anything, and the existence of low self-esteem. So that's another way in which something quite positive can have a nasty kickback. There is another reason why we might be feeling more anxious -- about our careers, about our status in the world today, than ever before. And it's, again, linked to something nice. And that nice thing is called meritocracy. 

06:04

Everybody, all politicians on Left and Right, agree that meritocracy is a great thing, and we should all be trying to make our societies really, really meritocratic. In other words -- what is a meritocratic society? A meritocratic society is one in which, if you've got talent and energy and skill, you will get to the top, nothing should hold you back. It's a beautiful idea. The problem is, if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you'll also, by implication, and in a far more nasty way, believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there. In other words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental, but merited and deserved. And that makes failure seem much more crushing. 

06:48

You know, in the Middle Ages, in England, when you met a very poor person, that person would be described as an "unfortunate" -- literally, somebody who had not been blessed by fortune, an unfortunate. Nowadays, particularly in the United States, if you meet someone at the bottom of society, they may unkindly be described as a "loser." There's a real difference between an unfortunate and a loser, and that shows 400 years of evolution in society and our belief in who is responsible for our lives. It's no longer the gods, it's us. We're in the driving seat. 

07:18

That's exhilarating if you're doing well, and very crushing if you're not. It leads, in the worst cases -- in the analysis of a sociologist like Emil Durkheim -- it leads to increased rates of suicide. There are more suicides in developed, individualistic countries than in any other part of the world. And some of the reason for that is that people take what happens to them extremely personally -- they own their success, but they also own their failure. 

07:42

Is there any relief from some of these pressures that I've been outlining? I think there is. I just want to turn to a few of them. Let's take meritocracy. This idea that everybody deserves to get where they get to, I think it's a crazy idea, completely crazy. I will support any politician of Left and Right, with any halfway-decent meritocratic idea; I am a meritocrat in that sense. But I think it's insane to believe that we will ever make a society that is genuinely meritocratic; it's an impossible dream. 

08:08

The idea that we will make a society where literally everybody is graded, the good at the top, bad at the bottom, exactly done as it should be, is impossible. There are simply too many random factors: accidents, accidents of birth, accidents of things dropping on people's heads, illnesses, etc. We will never get to grade them, never get to grade people as they should. 

08:27

I'm drawn to a lovely quote by St. Augustine in "The City of God," where he says, "It's a sin to judge any man by his post." In modern English that would mean it's a sin to come to any view of who you should talk to, dependent on their business card. It's not the post that should count. According to St. Augustine, only God can really put everybody in their place; he's going to do that on the Day of Judgment, with angels and trumpets, and the skies will open. Insane idea, if you're a secularist person, like me. But something very valuable in that idea, nevertheless.

08:55

In other words, hold your horses when you're coming to judge people. You don't necessarily know what someone's true value is. That is an unknown part of them, and we shouldn't behave as though it is known. There is another source of solace and comfort for all this. When we think about failing in life, when we think about failure, one of the reasons why we fear failing is not just a loss of income, a loss of status. What we fear is the judgment and ridicule of others. And it exists. 

09:21

The number one organ of ridicule, nowadays, is the newspaper. If you open the newspaper any day of the week, it's full of people who've messed up their lives. They've slept with the wrong person, taken the wrong substance, passed the wrong piece of legislation -- whatever it is, and then are fit for ridicule. In other words, they have failed. And they are described as "losers." Now, is there any alternative to this? I think the Western tradition shows us one glorious alternative, which is tragedy. 

09:46

Tragic art, as it developed in the theaters of ancient Greece, in the fifth century B.C., was essentially an art form devoted to tracing how people fail, and also according them a level of sympathy, which ordinary life would not necessarily accord them. A few years ago, I was thinking about this, and I went to "The Sunday Sport," a tabloid newspaper I don't recommend you start reading if you're not familiar with it already. 

10:11

And I went to talk to them about certain of the great tragedies of Western art. I wanted to see how they would seize the bare bones of certain stories, if they came in as a news item at the news desk on a Saturday afternoon. 

10:23

I mentioned Othello; they'd not heard of it but were fascinated. 

10:27

I asked them to write a headline for the story. They came up with "Love-Crazed Immigrant Kills Senator's Daughter." Splashed across the headline. I gave them the plotline of Madame Bovary. Again, a book they were enchanted to discover. And they wrote "Shopaholic Adulteress Swallows Arsenic After Credit Fraud." 

10:45

And then my favorite -- they really do have a kind of genius of their own, these guys -- my favorite is Sophocles' Oedipus the King: "Sex With Mum Was Blinding." 

10:59

In a way, if you like, at one end of the spectrum of sympathy, you've got the tabloid newspaper. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got tragedy and tragic art. And I suppose I'm arguing that we should learn a little bit about what's happening in tragic art. It would be insane to call Hamlet a loser. He is not a loser, though he has lost. And I think that is the message of tragedy to us, and why it's so very, very important, I think. 

11:22

The other thing about modern society and why it causes this anxiety, is that we have nothing at its center that is non-human. We are the first society to be living in a world where we don't worship anything other than ourselves. We think very highly of ourselves, and so we should; we've put people on the Moon, done all sorts of extraordinary things. And so we tend to worship ourselves. Our heroes are human heroes. That's a very new situation. Most other societies have had, right at their center, the worship of something transcendent: a god, a spirit, a natural force, the universe, whatever it is -- something else that is being worshiped. We've slightly lost the habit of doing that, which is, I think, why we're particularly drawn to nature. Not for the sake of our health, though it's often presented that way, but because it's an escape from the human anthill. It's an escape from our own competition, and our own dramas. And that's why we enjoy looking at glaciers and oceans, and contemplating the Earth from outside its perimeters, etc. We like to feel in contact with something that is non-human, and that is so deeply important to us. 

12:23

What I think I've been talking about really is success and failure. And one of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. If I said that there's somebody behind the screen who's very successful, certain ideas would immediately come to mind. You'd think that person might have made a lot of money, achieved renown in some field. My own theory of success -- I'm somebody who's very interested in success, I really want to be successful, always thinking, how can I be more successful? But as I get older, I'm also very nuanced about what that word "success" might mean. 

12:52

Here's an insight that I've had about success: You can't be successful at everything. We hear a lot of talk about work-life balance. Nonsense. You can't have it all. You can't. So any vision of success has to admit what it's losing out on, where the element of loss is. And I think any wise life will accept, as I say, that there is going to be an element where we're not succeeding. 

13:14

And the thing about a successful life is that a lot of the time, our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They're sucked in from other people; chiefly, if you're a man, your father, and if you're a woman, your mother. Psychoanalysis has been drumming home this message for about 80 years. No one's quite listening hard enough, but I very much believe it's true. 

13:33

And we also suck in messages from everything from the television, to advertising, to marketing, etc. These are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves. When we're told that banking is a very respectable profession, a lot of us want to go into banking. When banking is no longer so respectable, we lose interest in banking. We are highly open to suggestion. 

13:56

So what I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas, and make sure that we own them; that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out, at the end of the journey, that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along. 

14:21

So, I'm going to end it there. But what I really want to stress is: by all means, success, yes. But let's accept the strangeness of some of our ideas. Let's probe away at our notions of success. Let's make sure our ideas of success are truly our own. 

14:37

Thank you very much. 

14:54

Chris Anderson: That was fascinating. But how do you reconcile this idea of it being bad to think of someone as a "loser," with the idea that a lot of people like, of seizing control of your life, and that a society that encourages that, perhaps has to have some winners and losers? 

15:15

Alain De Botton: Yes, I think it's merely the randomness of the winning and losing process that I want to stress, because the emphasis nowadays is so much on the justice of everything, and politicians always talk about justice. Now I'm a firm believer in justice, I just think that it's impossible. So we should do everything we can to pursue it, but we should always remember that whoever is facing us, whatever has happened in their lives, there will be a strong element of the haphazard. That's what I'm trying to leave room for; otherwise, it can get quite claustrophobic. 

15:45

CA: I mean, do you believe that you can combine your kind of kinder, gentler philosophy of work with a successful economy? Or do you think that you can't, but it doesn't matter that much that we're putting too much emphasis on that? 

15:58

AB: The nightmare thought is that frightening people is the best way to get work out of them, and that somehow the crueler the environment, the more people will rise to the challenge. You want to think, who would you like as your ideal dad? And your ideal dad is somebody who is tough but gentle. And it's a very hard line to make. We need fathers, as it were, the exemplary father figures in society, avoiding the two extremes, which is the authoritarian disciplinarian on the one hand, and on the other, the lax, no-rules option. 

16:32

CA: Alain De Botton. 

16:34

AB: Thank you very much.