Escaping the prestige trap How to reshape our definition of success
[Music]
for as long as i can remember
i have been obsessed with the notion of
prestige
from the clothes i wore to the clubs
that i joined i assessed the value of
the things in my environment
based on how prestigious they were how
highly was it regarded by my peers and
my general society
in fact if you google the word prestige
you will find
that it’s defined as widespread respect
and admiration for something
based on its perceived value but what is
that perceived value prestige is a very
interesting social construct that’s been
with us since almost the very first
civilization
it’s a unique form of respect that
grants the beholder
a certain level of power in our society
holding a lot of prestigious titles is
almost anonymous to holding a lot of
power
one of my favorite quotes actually is
from spider-man
when uncle ben tells a naive peter
parker that with great power comes great
responsibility
i guess what he was trying to say is
that with great prestige comes great
responsibility
but is that actually true so
i went to a very very competitive high
school a place where your level of
success
was more often than not determined by
how prestigious of a summer internship
you got or how prestigious of a
university you got into
so naturally when i came to college i
continued to carry this very
narrow-minded definition of success
i defined my success based on the
prestige of the clubs that i joined or
the scholarships that i earned
in fact when i stepped foot on campus i
entered with a singular goal
of attending the midterm foundation
fellowship the most prestigious
scholarship the university of georgia
has to offer
and so every club i joined every
activity i participated in every person
i talked to
i did so with the one goal of getting
the foundation fellowship
and when it came time to apply my
meticulous planning and
months and months of hard work
eventually got me to an interview
but even after being so close to the
finish line even after sacrificing so
much
i wasn’t selected you see i
was a victim of the prestige trap the
prestige trap
is chasing what others think is
important rather than what
we actually think is important i was so
consumed by this one idea of success
that when i didn’t receive the
scholarship i
genuinely believed that i had failed in
life
my quest to attain the most prestigious
status at this university
came at the cost of my mental health my
friendships and most importantly
my belief in my own abilities
but what happened to me isn’t anything
unique
we see this all the time everywhere in
our society
we’re taught to chase prestige because
it opens doors for us
we should work hard and take advantage
of our education our resources and our
opportunities
to get into a very prestigious school we
should then work even harder
at said prestigious school to land a
very prestigious job
and then we should continue working hard
at said prestigious job
to accumulate so much wealth that
eventually
we can all enter a position of such high
privilege
that our children can repeat this entire
process for their children
i believe that this cycle of success is
what prevents us
from truly pursuing things that we find
true value
in our end goal should not be some
prestigious title or some prestigious
honor
but rather it should be a meaningful
pursuit that we find
true intrinsic value in for example
a recent study from 2017 found that
almost
40 percent almost 40 percent of
harvard’s graduating class
took up a job in either consulting or
banking simply because they were
considered
elite professions now there’s nothing
wrong with consulting or banking but
when you’re coming from a school like
harvard
and have access to some of the best
faculty resources and privileges
those students might have been able to
affect more genuine and impactful change
in fields that they were actually
passionate about fields such as
education criminal justice
alternative energy or even climate
change
now don’t get me wrong i’m not saying
that chasing prestige is completely bad
if i hadn’t gunned for the foundation
fellowship i would not have pushed
myself
to work as hard or perform at the level
that i did but i paid a heavy price for
it
what we shouldn’t do is chase prestige
blindly
before we blindly apply to that
prestigious program
job or scholarship we should take a
minute and really ask ourselves
do we actually want to do this we should
try and find value in things that
actually bring meaning to us
and to those around us passion should
come before prestige
not the other way around the key driver
of this cycle of success should be the
things that we actually care about
things that we value things that excite
us things that we’re passionate about
not things that will only bring us more
validation in society
you see people chase prestige because
they want to feel
powerful they equate that feeling of
recognition and power
with success but i disagree success is
not feeling powerful
or holding some fancy title success
success is the culmination of our values
and how we choose
to express them and ultimately practice
them
i for example overvalued prestige to
such an extent
that i completely neglected my other
values of mental health
friendship and self-belief and at the
end of that entire experience i came out
feeling
incredibly unsuccessful but i soon
realized that i don’t need
the foundation fellowship to accomplish
the things that i still want to
accomplish
we must reassess our definition
of success we must sit down and really
ask ourselves
what do we actually value what do we
actually care about
and how can we actually make some sort
of tangible difference
in the world around us
now i understand that not everyone can
afford to sit down
and ask themselves those exact questions
because they
are too worried about where their next
meal is going to come from but for those
of us who don’t have to worry about that
for those of us
who are privileged we must prioritize
meaningful change before titles when
uncle ben
told peter that with great power comes
great responsibility
what he really meant is that with great
privilege comes great responsibility
spider-man’s ability to save lives and
fight off some of the most powerful
villains
is not some prestigious title or some
prestigious honor it is a privilege
a privilege that he capitalizes on every
single day
regardless of what other people say
about him
we too must learn to use our privilege
to make value-based contributions as
opposed to title-based contributions
and if we don’t know what our values are
if we don’t know what excites us if we
don’t know what we care for
that’s okay but so long as we keep an
open mind and so long as we continue
trying new things i
am absolutely certain that each one of
us will be able to find a unique way
to express our true values our true
passions
and ultimately our true selves
the reason i say all of this is because
if you look at the word prestige a
little bit closer
you will find that it’s derived from the
latin root word
prestigious which literally means
illusion so let’s not spend our lives
chasing illusions thank you