I Need to End My Toxic Relationship with Prestige
Growing up in a country where majority of the population is Catholic (not to mention attending an all-girls Catholic school for pretty much the entirety of my formative years), one of the first things I learned was this:
“Thou shalt not worship other gods before me.”
Even those who haven’t been exposed to Biblical literature growing up will recognize this passage. It is the second of the Ten Commandments that the Lord gave Moses after his arrival at Mt. Sinai.
My Catechism teachers have always warned me against worshiping other gods. It was less so a warning to deter me from exploring other religions, but a heed to stay away from worldly things that could steer me away from my faith.
Money. Power. Fame.
Little did my teachers know that there was something else that would eventually capture all my attention. Little did they know that I would become so wholly obsessed with pursuing one thing in my life, a pursuit that would form the basis of my self-worth well into college and the beginning of my adult career — prestige.
Why We’re Obsessed with Prestige
It has taken me a long time to come to terms with my addiction to prestige. It’s not easy for me to admit that the reason I’ve hustled through high school, earned admission into an Ivy League university, and applied to internships for firms that brandish their name-brand like a badge of honor is because I was yearning for the prestige that these accomplishments would bring me.
I don’t think I’m alone in chasing after prestige. I’ve spoken to many friends, peers, and colleagues who all share the same sentiment. On application essays and cover letters, we wax lyrical about our desire to make an impact and why School A / Firm B gives us the right venue and platform to do so.
However, in the safety of our private chat rooms and coffee shop conversations, we begrudgingly, shamefully admit to ourselves, “It’s nice to have some sort of validation that we’re on the right track.”
There are three main reasons I believe our society is so focused on achieving prestige. For the purposes of this list, I will define “prestigious” to describe an act or accomplishment that receives admiration from people due to the perceived quality, status, or competitiveness of said act or accomplishment, and its ability to elevate the status of the person who carries out the prestigious action itself.
1) It’s a status symbol that can hide under the pursuit of meritocracy
People always love a “hard work trumps all” success story. It gives us some sort of comfort that we don’t have to be naturally gifted to achieve greatness in life. Some of today’s most popular self-help books, including Gladwell’s Outliers and Duckworth’s Grit, espouse the importance of committed, deliberate practice to mastering a skill versus natural talent.
When someone achieves something prestigious such as getting into a elite university, it’s automatically a symbol of his / her status. What magnifies the feeling of awe in people even more is if this prestigious endeavor was made possible through an individual's blood, sweat, and tears. It’s why a high school senior who gets into Harvard by winning the national spelling bee achieves more prestige (and by default, more recognition from the community) than a high school senior who gains admission via legacy.
People love the idea that they can make anything happen with the right amount of determination — it’s inspiring and proves an individual’s talent that’s separate from his / her background, connections, and inherited wealth.
For many insecure young adults out there (myself included), chasing after goals that are deemed prestigious gives us an excuse to freely and unapologetically chase after status. It’s a kind of status that is safely censored under a veil of “hard-earned” success, a kind of pursuit that won’t arouse eye rolls and “Oh, there she goes again posting about her new job on Facebook. I bet her dad knows someone there.” Instead, it’s a pursuit that draws warm congratulations because “she’s earned it fair and square”.
I worked hard for it. Of course I can brag about it (subtly, of course, via a LinkedIn update that automatically notifies all my connections).
A prestigious achievement is nothing more than a free pass to gloat without worrying about negative judgement.
2) Prestigious accomplishments often create a domino effect that spawns other prestigious opportunities
This reason is perhaps the most practical of the three. What I find really interesting about prestige is that everyone inherently knows when something is prestigious. They may not agree that it deserves the prestige, but they can’t deny the quality of prestige that it possesses.
Prestige can stem from a colorful and long-established history (e.g. the story of how the Ivy League was formed), or it can come from the perceived difficulty of pulling something off (there’s a reason why many universities try to bring their “admissions rate” down every year — when people think it’s hard to get in, it elevates the status of the university and makes it seem less attainable). Regardless of what drives the prestige of a goal, no one can deny when it exists.
Because of its universality, prestige becomes a signalling tactic; when someone achieves it the first time, people automatically connect the prestige of the accomplishment or institution to the person associated with it. A fresh graduate landing a job at a Fortune 500 firm, for example, doesn’t stop reaping the rewards of his accomplishment once he leaves the company. He continues to benefit from it in all of his future interviews because recruiters automatically see a stamp of approval from a prestigious firm; it will signal the candidate’s competence before he even steps into the room.
For many ambitious people, attaining prestige is the first step to creating a string of other successful opportunities.
3) When people aren’t sure of what goals to pursue, prestige becomes the goal itself
One of most eye-opening short-form essays I’ve ever read was this piece on optionality by Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai. He muses about the insane popularity of investment banking and management consulting as careers among HBS students, and deems it because of the optionality that these jobs bring to folks who aren’t quite sure what they want to do yet.
Consultants develop a broad range of skills and learn to work in teams. Bankers are exposed to various industries, hone their networking skills, and brush up on their technicals while they’re on the job. For people who have no clue what their “passions” are, doing either of these jobs is the perfect, risk-free opportunity until they figure things out.
Desai also talks about the possibility of being so obsessed with prestige and optionality that optionality becomes the end instead of a means to an end. Eventually, people get comfortable with where they are and forget that they only took on the job to catapult to something “better” in the future. Desai eloquently sums it up below,
“These safety nets don’t end up enabling big risk-taking — individuals just become habitual acquirers of safety nets. The comfort of a high-paying job at a prestigious firm surrounded by smart people is simply too much to give up. When that happens, the dreams that those options were meant to enable slowly recede into the background.”
I don’t think there’s anything wrong when something that was once a “safety net” or “stepping stone” eventually becomes the dream itself. What I find absolutely terrifying is giving up a dream in fear of failure; of losing security; of undoing all the self-confidence we built by pursuing conventional ideals of success.
What’s worse? Not even realizing what our dreams are because we were too busy delaying their pursuit in favor of prestige.
How Do I Break Up with Prestige?
This post was to help me come to terms with my toxic relationship with prestige. I’m tired of tying my sense of self-worth to an ideal that’s fueled by competitiveness, herd mentality, and a fear of acknowledging what I truly want to do lest society perceives it as unimpressive and unworthy of my time.
I’m no expert at relationships, but one thing I know is that the the first step to solving a problem is admitting that it exists. So here it goes:
Hi, I am currently in a toxic relationship with prestige. I’d like to get out of it. Any ideas how I can start?
