Every year, as required by federal and state law, my son David's teachers and other special education providers prepare what is known as an Individual Education Program or IEP. As he prepares to transition from middle school to high school (excuse me for a moment while I go listen to Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" and have myself a good cry) David's IEP "package" now includes his comments about his own goals and aspirations.

So what does David aspire to be? A "rock star." He's not sure whether he'll live in New York or in LA but he's sure he wants to perform in Madison Square Garden before thousands of adoring fans.

The first time I heard this, I didn't think that it was "cute" or funny. Instead, it made me feel very sad — it was an unwelcome reminder of David's limitations and his (and my) uncertain future. Then I read something in USA Today that helped me understand that David's aspirations aren't unique and may have less to do with his being autistic than I had thought.

"Generation Y's Goal? Wealth and Fame" was the title of the story about a Pew Research Center telephone survey of 579 18- to 25-year-olds. In additions to surveying their attitudes about issues such as race, sex, politics and religion, the researchers asked respondents about their aspirations and priorities.

Eighty-one percent of them told Pew that "getting rich" is their generation's most important or second most important goal in life. Fifty-one percent said the same thing about being famous. In a distant third through fifth places were helping people in need (30 percent), being leaders in the community (22 percent) and becoming more spiritual (10 percent), respectively.

The survey's results were neatly encapsulated in the words of 22-year-old Cameron Johnson of Blacksburg, Virginia: "when you open a celebrity magazine, it's all about the money and being rich and famous ... the TV shows we watch — anything from The Apprentice where the intro to the show is the 'money song' — to Us Weekly magazine where you see all the celebrities and their $6 million homes. We see reality TV shows with Jessica and Nick living the life. We see Britney and Paris. The people we relate to outside our friends are those people."

My reaction to the results and the article wasn't disdain so much as it was, once again, sadness. If wealth and fame, i.e., high status, is what Gen Y collectively aspires to then they are setting themselves up to be a very anxious and unhappy generation.

"High status" is how writer Alain de Botton would sum up the aspirations measured by the Pew study. In a not-all-that-uncommon (at least if you pay attention) coincidence, the study's results were released during the same week that many PBS stations were airing a two-part program featuring de Botton entitled "Status Anxiety."

In both the program and the eponymous book on which it was based, de Botton (rightly) argues that most of us don't seek fame and fortune for their own sakes but as means to another end: elevating our status, which he defines as "one's value and importance in the eyes of the world."

There's nothing wrong with that, per se. We are, as the expression goes, "social animals" and an indispensable part of our gregariousness is an awareness of how others perceive us. When people have trouble with this part of life, we sense that something is wrong: either they, like my son David, "suffer" from a developmental/cognitive disorder or are simply tedious and rude, if not worse.

(At the same time, we also know that being overly concerned about how people regard us can literally be deadly. Killing over being "disrespected" isn't a late-20th century innovation. From the 16th through 19th centuries, thousands of European men died in duels often prompted by trivial issues of honor, such as being told that their knowledge of Dante wasn't up to par.)

The problem lies, in part, with the criteria by which we determine status. As de Botton (again rightly) notes, "increasingly, status in the West has been awarded in relation to financial achievement." We strive for financial achievement because the high status it provides not only provides us with "freedom, space, comfort [and] time" but more importantly, with "a sense of being cared for and thought valuable."

The priorities of the respondents to the Pew study reflect the larger cultural attitude that high status is "one of the finest of earthly goods."

We Americans are especially susceptible to this kind of thinking. In "Democracy in America," Alexis De Tocqueville wrote that our egalitarian ethos, while it made our society incredibly dynamic and made the average American far better off than his European counterparts, had a dark side: a restlessness in the midst of unprecedented plenty and an envy that had us continuously comparing ourselves to our neighbors, whether their name was Jones, Slater or Rivera.

It isn't difficult to see how this restlessness and envy could mutate into an anxiety about "occupying too modest a rung," especially when we've been indoctrinated to believe that not only is high status one of life's "finest goods" but that, given enough effort, anything is possible. Even an accomplished (never mind virtuous) person can feel like a "loser" in this setting, as de Botton, a best-selling author, did after listening to motivational speaker Les Brown.

The truth is, of course, that "anything" isn't possible. What our culture increasingly defines as success is dependent, in no small measure, on circumstances outside of our control. For instance, most of us have nothing to do with our being born American citizens, which gives us a significant advantage over nearly everyone who has ever lived. And none of us has any control over the families into which are born. What the late Anne Richards wrongly said about the first president Bush — "he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple" — can be said of a lot of us. A little humility is in order.

The other problem is that we confuse our status with our worth. Whether the status we crave is a function of wealth, fame or some other criterion, the effect is the same: a denial of our inherent dignity and our right to a certain measure of respect by virtue of being human.

A feeling of being "cared for" and that we matter shouldn't be contingent on our accomplishments but, increasingly, they are. Even if our family and friends love us unconditionally, we are bombarded with countless contradictory messages.

No wonder we feel anxious.

What's the alternative? "Status Anxiety" hits the nail on the head when de Botton points out that it was Christianity that taught the West to distinguish between one's worth and one's status. Christians, after all, worship the one who famously said "foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head" and who invites us to find rest for our souls in his meekness and lowliness of heart.

This inversion of worldly values and expectations — as radical in Jesus' time as it is in ours — coupled with the assurance that this life, with all its uncertainty and suffering, was, in comparison to eternity, a transitory blip, was not only a comfort but also a warning to would-be status-seekers that all the striving and scheming in the world could not prevent the first from being last and the last from being first. As de Botton acknowledges, there is a direction connection between the decline of Christianity's influence over Western culture and the status anxiety he describes.

Unfortunately, having hit the nail on the head, de Botton then throws the hammer away. Possibly because he thinks that Christianity's influence (at least in Britain) is a thing of the past, he looks for alternatives elsewhere. He may be right: Christianity may not make the kind of cultural comeback needed to put a dent in the widespread phenomenon of status anxiety and the striving it produces. And, after all, it's unreasonable to expect non-Christians to live as if Christianity were true.

But it's not unreasonable to expect Christians to live as if it were true. For us, the "rat race" is completely optional. Just as David doesn't have to become a rock star to know that he is cared for and thought valuable, none of us have anything to prove, either. Our value was forever established in the act of love by which Jesus died. This is a big part of what he meant by "rest" and it's the status to which we should all aspire.