In his TED Talk, Alain De Botton right off the bat, explains that we as humans have an idea of our individual lives. We picture how our career is going to be, how our family will act, how much money we will make, and so on. Until our visions of the future come in contact with reality, and anxiety about our lives becomes overwhelming. An example of a real world experience according to De Botton is getting asked the question, "What do you do?". Being unsure of your life or feeling lesser than the person to you right, can cause depression and severe anxiety, which in a way is a tragedy having to do with one's emotional self.
Our society has also put pressure on doing anything you want and as much as you can in your life time. There is no limit to what you can do with your life, which puts pressure on everyone to rise up and be better than the best. With this, Botton brings up that envy is a big issue, "everybody is the same and yet they are not... the spirit of equality, combined with deep inequalities which makes for a very stressful situation". In our meritocratic society, we feel that if someone doesn't get to the top, they are losers and they deserve to be there. This means we are in the "driver's seat" of our lives, which puts terrible stress and anxiety on the people on the bottom.
De Botton goes on to talk about how tragedy is different, and can be looked at in new ways by everyone. His example of this is a local tabloid making up crazy headers for stories that don't matter, or that aren't as bad as the header reads. As a society, we make up tragedies, and place tragedies on other people. We cause our own, and each other's tragedies, but that is just how our society works now.