Notes of a Paranoid Schizophrenic

Whew!  What a long and action-packed week it has been.  I’ve taken the week off after my birthday, and spent it with four of my old friends, and a few new ones.  We packed four guys, four cats, two motorcycles, four bicycles, and all our stuff into a pickup truck, and made our way east to sunny Vernon.

I don’t know what it is about having four guys together on a holiday, but somehow beer consumption is deemed to be very important, no matter the expense or the hangover effect, not to mention the high calory count, there seems to be nothing more important than beer.  When it  came to planning anything, beer was the ultimate winner for the top spot on the planning list, followed by food, a close second.

But I digress… My topic for this post is status among friends.  What do I mean by status?  Status is a measurement of respect, and respect is generally achieved with either money or achievement.  The sad truth is that for some of us, who have for some reason or another not found our way in life, not achieved anything noteworthy, or perhaps we’ve tasted success but had unlucky outcomes, we find ourselves at a lower status.

I find status interesting because my own status has fallen.  When I first met my friends fifteen years ago, the beer-drinking friends I spent last week with, we were pretty much of equal status.  None of us had made our mark yet, and we were all eager to do so.  We were in our 30’s and we all had dreams of success.  It was a good time because we helped each other.  One friend taught me about the value of real estate and helped me by my condo.   Another friend became fascinated with computers due to my own experience with them, and took that fascination and built a very successful web business.  We all made a mark and began our path to our chosen careers and ultimately, success.  As time progressed, some continued the climb to success, while others, due to unluckier circumstances, found that success had evaded them (at least for now).  That is also what happened to me.

What has any of this got to do with status?  I am just trying to say that it is natural for people to want to have the respect of their peers.  As some rise in their success, their status also rises.  We respect them.  Conversely, when we fall from success, so does our status fall.  If the successful friend has an opinion, well he’s successful, so he must be right.  If the fallen friend has an opinion, he doesn’t have sufficient rank.  After all, his thinking hasn’t gotten him very far in life, so why trust his opinion?  The successful friend will win the battle, even if he’s completely wrong.  That’s just the way it is.

One of my very good friends has been fortunate in his success.  His status has risen.  Most of us believe what he says because he has achieved authority.  He has money, and he has a family, he has survived two divorces, and he is holding it all together.  Naturally, we all respect him.  But I see cracks in his status, frail little fault-lines in the foundations of it.  He has, on occassion when there is nobody else around, admitted that the big-time beer consumption is based on peer-pressure.  He knows it doesn’t make him feel great.  He knows it costs a lot of money.  But if he doesn’t drink beer among his old friends, it might affect his status.  And given that he has more money than the rest of us, he tends to spoil us and buy more than his share, thereby increasing his status.

He and I also quit smoking at the same time, smoking is bad for obvious reasons, but we both felt that there was an element of shame in being seen smoking by non-smokers.  Shame.  Status.  It’s all connected.

One of my other friends has his own way of coping with his status.  Another of the fallen, he covers up his insecurity with status symbols.  He finds it very important to be seen in an expensive new vehicle that he can barely afford, or to have the latest cell phone, or to be associated with the wealthy.  He is not above name-dropping, and he often boasts when there isn’t a lot to boast about.  He also drinks a lot.  He can barely afford his monthly payments, but he always has enough for drink.  I can’t blame him, we all have our ways of covering up our insecurities.  And his strategies actually work.  His shiny new vehicle does attract the respect of others, so does his fancy cell phone.  But it’s just a strategy, it’s not real.

We often do things for the wrong reasons, just for the sake of status.  I personally want to forget about status, but it isn’t that simple.  It’s human to crave the respect of one’s peers, and I want it as much as anybody.  But I refuse to do it by being boastful, I refuse to exaggerate or deceive just for the sake of winning a debate, and I don’t hide behind status symbols.  However, I can tell you truthfully, that it is very painful to be the low man on the status totem pole. It doesn’t sit well.  I sometimes want to yell out, “Hey, I am important too!”  But that’s not going to change anything.  I have decided to continue on my quest for greater enlightenment, and see if I can rid myself of the need to have status.

My best friend says that status just isn’t important.  I believe him, but until I achieve that level of enlightenment, status remains an unwanted part of my life.

Status is the cousin of of pride, and pride is one of the seven deadly sins.

***The purpose of this blog is to learn how to be happy and successful***