In Raj Raghunathan’s book, If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? Raj Raghunathan, Ph.D., he reveals seven happiness “sins” that highly successful people fall into.
Many successful people measure their self-worth by how they measure up to whoever seems to be more successful than them, which is a recipe for depression inducing envy. We are often taught in schools and by our parents to always strive to do better, moving the goalpost every time we achieve our goals as if the first objective wasn’t enough. Always looking up the ladder is surely a self-destructive behaviour. This constant comparison to others can cause extreme feelings of failure even when you’re super-successful because there is probably someone out there doing it better than you. It seems that no matter how successful you become there are people who are doing better than you. When you come from a first world country there is never ending fierce competition to be the best at simply everything. So why does depression affect people who are extremely successful, the ones who seem to have the perfect lives and everything you could ever want? It may be hard to empathize for the people who look like they have the dream life, but we will try to show you how life might look through their eyes and what might be causing their struggles with depression. However, there seems to be something about people who are wildly successful that makes them higher risk for depression. It is also important to point out that whether you are an upper-class or lower-class individual depression can affect everyone in any socioeconomic class. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or need someone to talk to, please reach out to the crisis hotline. Todd Essig, Forbes contributor and psychologist in New York City says, “Many C-suite executives are prone to depression, despite their success, maybe even because of it.” Just a week ago Kate Spade, founder and former co-owner of the designer brand Kate Spade New York committed suicide despite having one of the most successful careers in fashion history. We also know from cross-national research that depression is actually more common in wealthy countries than less wealthy countries. In fact, studies show that highly successful individuals such as CEOs may be depressed at more than double the rate of the average population (which is already close to 20%). One of the largest myths about depression is that it escapes the lives of successful people, that only people who are poor or come from tough upbringings are prone to depression. Highly Successful People Are at Higher Risk for Depression
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