Some days, life can be hard and difficult. And because of this, many people are suffering at home and at work. They are feeling overwhelmed, drained, and lost in complexity. Each day seems to be an endless series of unpredictable, and uncontrollable events. And as a result, they struggle, and they suffer.
Recently, I have been thinking about the term that went viral in mid 2022 called “quiet quitting.” When people engage in “quiet quitting,” it is a choice not to abruptly leave a job, but instead to do exactly what the job requires, no more no less. These individuals are choosing to limit their work to their contract hours. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report in June 2022 said that job dissatisfaction was at an all-time high with 60% reporting emotional detachment from work. I doubt this has changed much since then.
Given the last couple of years, it is no surprise to me that worker burnout is happening. Employees are not connecting with their work, or their managers. Some workers say “quiet quitting” is simply the best term for setting boundaries at work and seeking a healthier work-life balance.
First, I think quiet quitting is the last stage in a long line of choices, actions, and reactions. From my vantage point, I think we need to ask some important questions: What was happening in a person’s life before they engaged in quiet quitting? Why was quiet quitting the best choice given all the other choices before them?
I have come to believe that quiet quitting is the result of all that has taken place since the arrival of COVID-19 and a global pandemic. Remembering that many people went into the pandemic in March of 2020 feeling drained and overwhelmed from the roller coaster ride of 2018 and 2019, the subsequent years of 2020, 2021, and 2022 did not get any better.
Since March of 2020, we have mostly focused on making life functional. We have Zoomed and FaceTimed more than ever before. We have isolated, worked from home, and ordered on-line for nearly everything. We have baked bread, planted gardens, streamed endless shows and movies, all with the hope of being able to survive and adapt. The outcome of all of these choices is that we have loss vital connections with others and our communities. We have cocooned and lived, but we also have been stressed and overwhelmed by the journey to 2023. In short, we have functioned, but not thrived.
In the meantime, life has continued to move forward at an alarmingly complex pace. People are doing their best, but some days, this means they are just doing the basics, namely, food, shelter, family, and job. Each day, they get up, make breakfast for themselves and their families, drop off the kids at daycare or school, and finally end up at work. Hopefully, this all happens in such a manner that everyone makes it there on time. Then, work is filled with countless meetings, deadlines, and endless amounts of emails. At the end of the day, it is the whole thing all over again, but in reverse.
For these people and their families, work life balance is a myth. Most are barely coping on a day to day basis. They have lost the feeling and the experience of balance, wholeness, and connection. Instead, life is just a never ending experience of exhaustion and difficulties. In short, it is an on-going experience of quiet suffering.
Second, I think many people are defining their relationship with others as an “all or nothing relationship.” In simple terms, an all or nothing relationship is based on the tendency to define another person or persons as either completely positive or completely negative. There is no in-between.
To understand this concept, we need to understand relationships through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Starting at the bottom of the Hierarchy and moving upwards, the needs are physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging (friendship), self-esteem, and ultimately self-actualization. Physiological needs are the most essential things a person needs to survive. They include the need for shelter, water, food, warmth, rest, and health. A person’s motivation at this level derives from their instinct to survive. On the other hand, self-actualization, which is at the top of the pyramid, focuses on achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities. It centers on self-fulfillment needs.
Furthermore, self-actualized people have peak experiences, and a continuous sense of appreciation. They are realistic, problem-centered, and independent. These regular peak experiences display three core characteristics: significance, fulfillment, and spirituality. This state of self-actualization is obtainable only after one’s fundamental needs for survival, safety, love, and self-esteem are met.
The challenge with all or nothing relationships is that an individual wants to find a high degree of self-actualization in their relationships with others. They want more than love, belonging, or self-esteem. They want to have a series of continual peak experiences and they want continuous appreciation.
For example, before entering into a long term relationship or a marriage, most people had multiple friends and thus multiple sources of support to manage the stress of daily living. However, upon entering into marriage or a long term and stable relationship, many people loose their entire friendship network and expect one, singular individual to provide for them every thing and more than what previously required a whole network of people to achieve.
Now, add into this mix a three year global pandemic where many relationships were degraded or were abandoned because of numerous factors beyond one’s control, namely achieving the goal of not dying from COVID plus surviving at the food, shelter and safety level, i.e. the bottom half of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The long term result of these choices is disastrous, because long term burnout due to unrealistic expectations is inevitable.
Finally, I believe there is a third element in play here when it comes to the term, quiet quitting. I believe that many older, senior leaders have forgotten that parenting, especially with younger children, is very difficult and exhausting given current events. I believe that they have lost touch with the demands on young families and the lack of infrastructure to support young families.
For example, a large majority of households are now made up of two working adults whose combined income, given the current rate of inflation, is barely meeting basic household needs, i.e. think physiological needs. Furthermore, their entire ability to work is based on schools and daycare being functional and dependable systems of support. And this has not always been the case during the last three years.
Furthermore, given it has been hard to recruit and retain people to work within the business world during a global pandemic, this also is happening within the current educational system. And, from what I am told, even more so in the low-paying world of daycare services. The overall result is the lack of a dependable infrastructure of support which families can count on and build upon given life’s current complexities.
In addition, we need to recognize that some families are experiencing the dual challenge of needing to care for their children and, at the exact same time, their aging parents, i.e. what is often called “the sandwich generation.” This combination is a recipe for extreme difficulties and hardship.
FYI: To be continued on Wednesday.
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