Toxic Achievement Zombies

Addicted to gold stars, stuck in status games — and finding a way out

Can you feel her Anxious Achievement Addiction?

I just finished a book assigned by the head of my son’s school called Never Enough. It’s about toxic achievement culture, particularly the rat race to get into top colleges that seems to get more intense and absurd with every year. It was excellent — easily the best parenting book I’ve read all year. It also made me squirm by surfacing the tug-of-war between my inner tiger parent and my chill, free-range aspirations. More importantly, the book helped me recognize an archetype I see everywhere, and at times in myself. I call it the Toxic Achievement Zombie.

The Toxic Achievement Zombie, or TAZ, is a compulsive striver who believes, consciously or not, that their worth depends on achieving. TAZes are smart, driven, high-functioning, and often admired. But there’s a certain soullessness — nothing evil or psychotic, just a vibe that’s part neurotic, part robotic. The kind who climbs a mountain, snaps a selfie at the summit, and never notices the dewy leaves in the forest, sweeping ridge-top views, or the pleasure of resting on a bed of pine needles with a Nalgene in hand.

In their relentless quest for achievement, TAZes forget how to be human. They lose the ability to be present or feel joy — to enjoy something simply for its own sake. Maybe that’s why they’re so often anxious or depressed. They suffer from what I call Anxious Achievement Addiction. Unlike, say, meth, this addiction is socially sanctioned, institutionally rewarded, and doesn’t ruin your teeth.

TAZes are hooked on external validation. They’re constantly optimizing, performing, and climbing. They should all over themselves. They’re often seen as role models: top students, elite influencers, executive leaders, winning politicians, respected community leaders. But somewhere along the way, they lost touch with intrinsic motivations like joy, meaning, or purpose. Or maybe they never had them in the first place.

TAZes feel empty without goals, measurements, ribbons, and clout. Life is a treadmill to them. They have no chill. It’s not that their achievement is bad. It’s good! But for them, it’s a drug. If they don’t get their fix, they suffer from withdrawal. For them it’s existential: Without the gold star, who am I? Without the structure of a status game or a marathon, they struggle to identify what they truly want versus the next trophy to chase.

You can spot TAZes at every stage of life. In high school, they’re the over-scheduled strivers obsessed with college admissions, muttering “Ivy League or bust” under their breath — think Tracy Flick, the ruthlessly ambitious student played by Reese Witherspoon in the 1999 movie Election. In college, they’re the pre-meds who eat meals in the library, trading the college experience for a shot at Johns Hopkins or UCSF Med. Some TAZes show up as hot-girl influencers, posting selfies with besties — addicted to likes and follows at the expense of real connection. Others are hyper-competitive athletes so focused on winning and NIL deals that they forget why they started playing in the first place. In the corporate world, TAZes grind toward VP or partner without ever asking why — and spend time “networking” in that hellscape known as LinkedIn. In tech, they’re the would-be founders more obsessed with getting into YC or raising a Series A than, say, winning customers.

The common theme: vanity metrics. Regardless of role or age, TAZes prioritize performance over presence, extrinsic validation over intrinsic gratification. They thrive in highly mimetic environments with structured status games and leaderboard-type feedback. In other words: rat races.

Like other addictions, Anxious Achievement Addiction can be passed down by generation. As parents, TAZes channel their addiction through their children, often without realizing it. In Never Enough, author Jennifer Breheny Wallace introduces the concept of “conditional regard” — when parents condition their affection on whether their child meets certain expectations, like grades or athletic success. This might show up as subtle disappointment over a missed goal in hockey or over a B+ on a test. The message becomes: You are “less than” for not achieving.

TAZ parents may also be driven by what Wallace calls “status safeguarding,” anxiety that their kids might slip down the socioeconomic ladder. That fear leads them to overbooking and helicoptering, which often backfires as anxiety, burnout, and second-generation TAZ behavior. Wallace links this behavior to structural economic realities, including rising inequality and the collapse of middle-class stability. That connection hit me hard, honestly. It made me think about how my own perception of economic asymmetry affects my parenting, like my fixations on Alpha School and how AI will transform society.¹

For many parents, yesterday’s version of “getting ahead” can feel like today’s version of staying afloat. And let’s be real: some degree of status safeguarding is rational. But what separates TAZ from non-TAZ parenting comes down to one word: mattering. TAZ parents convey the message, You matter because of your achievement. Non-TAZ parents convey: You matter just for being you. Mattering is, in fact, the cure for Anxious Achievement Addiction.

All my life, I’ve envied Millennials and Gen Z for the hands-on parental guidance they got compared to my generation. But Never Enough showed me the darker side that attention — the pressure, neurotic energy, and achievement compulsion disguised as love. The challenge for us parents is: How do we give our kids the gift of unconditional mattering while still preparing them to succeed?

This, ultimately, is why we should have compassion for Toxic Achievement Zombies. Because behind the goals and gold stars is a person who doesn’t believe they matter just for being themselves. It reminds me of a major lesson I got at a week-long “therapy bootcamp” in Napa in my 30s.² I had always prided myself on setting goals. But I began to see a shadow side: some of my drive came from my own lack of self-worth. I didn’t believe I mattered unless I achieved. Without something to strive for, I didn’t know how to be.

So now I pause and ask: Is this goal something truly important, or that I truly want, or is it a fake TAZ-driven vanity thing? I’ve also learned to give myself permission not to have a goal. On Substack, the TAZ in me gets tempted to “go big,” grow a massive audience, and have more influence. I’ve built media businesses and know the playbook. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to explore (ok, indulge) ideas and curiosities I care about, while connecting with others. I get joy from this.

Looking at the TAZ phenomenon more broadly, I can’t help but see how our aggressively neoliberal, late-capitalist society is driving it. Yet it also provides ways out. The material distance between a guy with a successful plumbing business and the median Princeton graduate isn’t as vast as we might think. But try telling that to an Ivy-obsessed high school kid or parent. Status is illusory and zero-sum. But material wealth is positive-sum and real. And spiritual well-being is, well, priceless.

These forces — mattering, status, economic anxiety, and spiritual well-being — swirl through all of us. And the tension between them is real. If you feel worthy but can’t pay rent, that’s not good. If you’re wealthy but don’t believe you matter unless you make a Forbes list, that’s not good either. Most of us want the trifecta: status, material security, and a sense of inner peace. But getting there, I’ve come to realize, is less about playing a prescribed game and more about following a winding, personal path.³

It’s tempting to say: just opt out of status games and tame your ambition. But is that even possible? Isn’t status-seeking baked into human nature? And isn’t ambition good? The real challenge, I believe, is to have healthy relationships with status and ambition — to choose the right games, for the right reasons, and not let them define your worth. As a parent, I want my kid to shoot for the stars, but I also want him to know he matters regardless.

So hug your local Toxic Achievement Zombie, especially if it’s the TAZ within you. Tell this person you love them just for being them. Help them to discern the difference between their real and hollow goals. Then, if you really want to challenge them… dare them to feel joy.

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Theme Song

1. For more on Alpha School, here’s a review on

Astral Codex Ten

.

2. Check out the Hoffman Institute. Big fan.

3.

Paul Millerd

calls this the Pathless Path. It’s a good concept.