Too simple, thus too terrible

In the story, "The Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy, we notice a certain process that Ivan takes: taking the suggestions of society to shape his own world. In the story it mentions that "Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.", which shows that he didn't take his own perspectives in order to decide what to do with his life, instead he went along with what society accepted, and thus took that course instead. Through his life we notice that he makes decisions that society seems to consider "simple and appropriate". We never fully hear him stating any real passions he wants to pursue, we just see his struggle is to be superior above everyone in order to be considered important and valuable in society.
I conclude this from the fact that he marries his wife, not from the mere and enjoyable interest of loving her, instead he does it due to the fact that society is charmed by their presence and how appropriate and perfect it seems to consider a wife in his time.

Also, later in the story he becomes very unhappy due to the change of plans that occur during his marriage. He ends of fighting frequently and never finding a way to pleasure his wife due to her unnecessary dissatisfactions with her life. Due to his actions, we find that his decisions were unnecessary due to the results of unhappiness that come up in his life. We also notice that when he fails to sustain a high ranking job, society considers him a failure. This failure brings a new low in Ivan, which sets him in a whole new depression of not being able to be accepted by society. Through his troubles and "failures", he is ranked and judged.

When Ivan notices that he isn't accepted anymore, he does everything in his power to have that luxury again. He finds connections and thus find his way up again. But this struggle shows him that he rather be at home. This doesn't really go well with his wife, who is only interested in living a wonderful life of importance. Therefore, his struggle isn't only to sustain his happiness, but the happiness of his ungrateful family, as well. Thus, at his end, he didn't live his life to sustain his own happiness; he lived his life in order to be accepted and to be loved. He also lived a life simple and ordinary in order to not cause any controversy with his surroundings. He could have chosen a different path, a satisfying path, but that would have gone against the wishes of his society. So he worked himself to death to provide pleasing results for the sake of living an ordinary life, which resulted in his horrible, true life he ended up having until the end.