We strive to better our lot because we seek to be ‘observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of’. It’s the dream that says status symbols such as wealth will make us perfectly happy that inspires us to ‘cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe’.
