In a world obsessed with success, plenty of us feel a compulsive need to achieve.
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We tell ourselves - and our kids - to try hard and never give up, for this is the secret to success. But by the time young people finish school, many students find it hard not to link their efforts and abilities with their identity and their self-worth with their achievements.
CPXer Justine Toh’s book Achievement Addiction calls out our fraught relationship with success. In this episode, we talk about tiger parenting and its fixation on academic accomplishment and how meritocratic ideas associating success with effort imply that our wins and failures are always deserved. We also discuss other social cues showing the value we place on achievement - like the way former Australian Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey once described Australia as a nation of “lifters, not leaners” which distinguishes between those who contribute to the public purse and those who take from it.
We also talk to Julia, a Sydney-based cardiologist, who wouldn’t describe herself as an achievement addict but who found herself striving for significance. She lets us in on what might be found on the other side of achievement.
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Explore:
Justine Toh’s Achievement Addiction and other titles in the Re:CONSIDERING series.
Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Michael J. Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good
Miroslav Volf - ReThinking Talk 1: Faith and Violence
Life and Faith: Francis Spufford
Life and Faith: Katherine Leary Alsdorf
Life and Faith: Aboriginal Spirituality
Life and Faith: Lies, Love and Hitler
Life and Faith: Australia's Christian Heritage
Life and Faith: Divergent
Life and Faith: Noah
Life and Faith: Greg Lake
Life and Faith: 12 Years a Slave and the Wolf of Wall Street
Life and Faith: The Armstrong Lie
Life and Faith: Longing for Home
Life and Faith: Technopoly
Life and Faith: Any room for God at school?
Life and Faith: Christianity and Persecution
Life and Faith: Forgiveness
Life and Faith: The Great Bible Swindle
Life and Faith: Tim Winton
Life and Faith: Peter Hitchens Part II
Life and Faith: Peter Hitchens
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