A recent Insight program on SBS featured a debate surrounding English philosopher Alain de Botton’s most recent book Status Anxiety.
A recent Insight program on SBS featured a debate surrounding English philosopher Alain de Botton’s most recent book Status Anxiety.
Botton’s basic question was whether society has become so obsessed with status that we have lost the art of being happy. Enlisting the help of politicians, TV and radio personalities as well as entrepreneurs, the program explored this possibility or if there is something productive about status anxiety that enables us to strive for excellence.
In an hour of fascinating television, many views were aired on the topic often coming down to the relationship between success and happiness and our modern day tendency to acquaint one with the other. Questions were also raised around whether material acquisition and success are one and the same.
Watching this show, it struck me that as human resources is, after all, the most human facing of the corporate professions, could it be that we as a profession have picked up on this sociological phenomenon? Has HR developed its own workplace version of status anxiety?
The night before Insight, ABC’s Four Corners program featured an equally intriguing topic: Australia’s personal debt explosion. This documentary chronicled how Australians, quite possibly as a result of status anxiety, are buying bigger and more houses. Some people are delaying their life enjoyment so that they can invest more and more while others are racking up enormous bills on their credit cards. Gone are the days where we scrimped and saved, and more importantly just made do with what we had.
Again, I thought has HR been on its own spending spree of late? Has HR been looking for more and broader responsibility for example, hoping to gain some street cred?
So singularly obsessed has HR become with being seen as equal in status with CFOs, COOs and CIOs, that it has taken drastic and possibly irrational actions to get noticed.
Directly after the Insight program, SBS had another excellent program, this time about the dieting wars in the US. It concluded that the only safe way to lose weight, and importantly, to keep it off, was to moderate your intake of food and to exercise regularly – to adopt a more healthy lifestyle.
Who says we can’t learn things from watching television?
