Progress is a good thing but it doesn't always make life better. You can move up in the world making you more well known however, if you have more money you can be caught doing little things, that can mess up your entire life. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby becomes rich but, The man married to the woman he loves has him killed by a confused man angry from the death of his wife. Gatsby became rich but is killed because he did something wrong which ruined his life, and just as things were looking better, he's killed by someone that only knows who he is and not what he does. In the song "I Melt With You" by Modern English the lyrics say "You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time there's nothing you and I won't do." This suggest the opposite and that moving forward in life makes things optimistically better. These show that progress can be good or bad depending on how you use your reputation.

I Melt with you

Modern English