I never got on the ladder. Been self-employed since 1991. For a while on sales trips to trade shows I envied the salaried with expense accounts people I pitched. It took a few years to figure out they envied my unmuzzled autonomy, creativity, freedom (to fail often).

The status game is like the end of the 1983 movie War Games when the computer that nearly blows up the world in a thermonuclear war says to its creator, "Strange game professor. The only way to win is not to play."

But, as John Adams once said, "the human appetite for superiority is without limit."

Those addicted to it forget that every gain in status or superiority is matched by a loss in connection.