Status Anxiety

Poorer, but no less happy - another night sleeping in our 1986
pick-up truck.  Yosemite National Park, California.

I’ve been reading a great book by the imaginatively named Alain de Botton, called Status Anxiety.  If you can get hold of a copy, do so.  (I 'borrowed' my copy a while ago from my sister - sorry Liz, I don’t think I actually told you – it was on that bookshelf next to your spare room and I just helped myself).  The central premise of the book is that status – traditionally thought of as a matter of one’s position in society, but in a broader sense a matter of one’s value and importance in the eyes of the world – is considered one of the finest of earthly goods.  De Botton reckons that high status brings pleasant consequences including “resources, space, comfort, time, and a sense of being cared for and thought valuable – conveyed through invitations, flattery, laughter (even when the joke lacks bite), deference and attention”.  However, whilst the hunger for status can spur us on towards excellence, it can also bring us harm.  In particular, it can lead to a destructive fear that we are in danger of not conforming to the ideals that society has laid down - that we are not occupying a high enough rung on the ladder of success, or are in danger of falling to a lower one.  De Botton thinks this is capable of ruining extended periods of our lives and he calls the condition ‘status anxiety'. De Botton goes on to explore the causes of status anxiety – both perceived and real.  He points out the shifting nature of concepts of status, as between different societies and through different periods of history, whether it derives from athletic prowess, accumulation of wealth, intelligence, or birthright. It makes for fascinating reading. I haven’t got to the end, so I don't yet know whether he offers a miracle cure.

I have, in the course of the last month, changed my job. Whilst I will stay at the same law firm, I will no longer be a fee-earning lawyer.  In other words, I will be a cost to the business, rather than a source of profit.  In my new role as a 'Professional Development Lawyer' (a rather fancy name for someone who trains other lawyers without having to actually do much lawyering himself), I have waved goodbye to daily timesheets, to unpredictable (and often long) hours, to the stress of dealing with client queries (always urgent), to billing, to having to constantly check my blackberry (in order to be truly ‘responsive’), and to the pressure to record seven and a half chargeable hours a day, every day. But I have also said goodbye to being a senior associate at the City's leading litigation firm, to having a nice office with a trainee to mentor, a great team of junior associates and a fantastic secretary, and to the excitement of working on some of the biggest – and most difficult - disputes in the UK Courts.  As a senior associate I was, I would like to think, respected by both my peers and my superiors, liked by my co-workers (if not all my clients), and generally valued for my contribution to my team and the firm as a whole.  I was on the promotion track and would, with hard work and a bit of luck, be admitted to the partnership within the next couple of years.  In short, I had status.

So why the change of job?  There are many reasons, but I think they all point to two (interlinked) things: time, and fun.  Ultimately I found myself short of both. The stress, late nights, unpredictable (and often seemingly unreasonable – until I remember what my hourly rate is) client demands, endless blackberry checking, the tedium of huge commercial disputes, the thousands of documents, even the lack of time – all these things were bearable as long as I was having fun.  But over the course of the last year I found myself increasingly leaving work feeling unhappy, annoyed, or a combination of both.  I could never really put my finger on why until it hit me as blindingly obvious: I just wasn’t having that much fun any more.  As I have said before, being a lawyer is all I ever really wanted to be, even if I don’t know why (perhaps I just love a good argument, as Anita and my mother will both no doubt attest).  So I suppose I’ve lost my lawyer mojo (two words that I suspect are rarely found in the same sentence).  Maybe temporarily, maybe forever. Will I ever be a ‘proper’ lawyer again?  Who knows.

Anyway, having revealed my innermost agonies for your delectation, I suppose I should return to the subject of this post.  One part of the switch to my new job involved agreeing a new (lower) salary.  I dutifully drew up an excel spreadsheet to see what the effect on my monthly income would be – I have a mortgage to pay, after all.  And the funny thing is, taking a substantial salary cut, whilst not ideal, is not what has worried me the most. Instead, I have been plagued by a sense that by stepping away from fee-earning, I am stepping down from something, moving to a lower position.  What I suppose I am really struggling with is the feeling that I won’t be valued. That I won’t be as well respected or, perhaps, as well liked, as I was as a lawyer at the sharp end. I suppose I am worried that I will miss, in De Botton's words, the “resources, space, comfort, time, the sense of being cared for and thought valuable – conveyed through invitations, flattery, laughter, deference and attention”. Ok, so I never got that much deference, but people did generally laugh at my jokes (most of the time).

In a couple of weeks’ time I will be off the sofa and into the office to start my new job.  At that point perhaps I will simply have insufficient time to worry about such matters.  And I should remember that for me, changing jobs is all about giving myself more time, having more fun and being happier.  In his book De Botton quotes the nineteenth century philosopher John Ruskin.  In 1862, in Unto This Last, Ruskin urges us to set aside our ordinary wealth and power-based notions of status in favour of a ‘life based’ view.  As he wrote, “there is no wealth but life, including all its powers of love, of joy and of admiration. That country is richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.  Many of the persons commonly considered wealthy are, in reality, no more wealthy than the locks of their own strong boxes, they being inherently and eternally incapable of wealth.” Literally, wise words.

This post has gone on far longer than is decent. So, if you are still reading, I’ll share one last nugget of wisdom, this time from the Greek peninsula in the fifth century BC.  De Botton recounts a story about Alexander the Great passing through Corinth, where he visits the famous philosopher Diogenes. He finds Diogenes penniless and dressed in rags, sitting under a tree.  Alexander, the most powerful man in the world, asks if there is anything he can do for him.  “Yes,” replies Diogenes, “you could step out of the way. You are blocking the sun.” Alexander the Great, famed for his vicious temper, simply laughs, and says if he weren’t Alexander the Great, he’d certainly like to be Diogenes.  I think I would too.