Ghosting, cancelling, and what holds us together?
Paul King MSc (Psych)
I'm not 'a thing', but Therapist & Adviser (personal and financial), Artist, Potter, and Musician are what I 'do'.
Ghosting and cancelling have become acceptable. What binds us together? Contracts and enforcement?
I’ve misunderstood this because I feel moral obligations and am embarrassed if I don’t act on them or at least acknowledge them and apologize if I slip up. At least, that’s how I try to be. I do mean in business primarily, but in our personal lives too. It seems to me most people just don’t care. No one is perfect, but it seems there’s little or no conscience or shame attached to willfully being misleading, duplicitous, feckless, or dishonourable.
I’m really struggling with this. There seems to need to be a metaphorical gun to people’s heads to get them to do what they say they’ll do. Or else they need to stand to benefit themselves. What’s happened to integrity – to just being a good person and caring about more than personal gain?
Is it something which our impersonal relationships on social media have promoted? I think I see an acceptance of this kind of behaviour in TV and movie dramas; the ‘yeah, you’ll never hear from them again’ acceptance. Has it been written into the human experience that we can commit to something, and that commitment is nothing more than a ‘maybe if it suits me, I might’? I also wonder if the increasingly litigious nature of the developed world is either a cause or a reflection. Unless there is an enforceable contract, it’s just words.;- even if there is an enforceable contract, how enforceable is it?
I must stress, no one gets this right all the time. However, is it just me that gets embarrassed when they know they’ve promised to do something, and they don’t? Do people no longer feel they should honour their words, or if they cannot, that they should at least explain and make an apology? I feel bad if I don’t acknowledge that someone has communicated with me. It’s rude not to, isn’t it?
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There is a word that keeps coming up in business parlance – accountability. There’s a need to have someone to be accountable. People are required to be nailed down to specifics. There must be “consequences”. Is there no embarrassment attached to being a half-a…d kind of person? I remember when I came to NZ, being a bit stunned when people gave as a reason for not having done something, or not followed through on promises or assertions the ‘explanation’ “too hard”. Too hard… so, you just didn’t bother? Yep.
At least “too hard” was some kind of explanation. Now we have ghosting. Just not responding. Not giving anything. Being SO contemptuous of the other person that a tacit ‘they’ll work it out’ is just fine. I can see that there are times when this ‘withering on the vine’ approach is the best way. For example, sometimes people just drift apart. However, when you’ve said you’ll do something, and you just don’t, and you get a friendly reminder and just ignore it and keep ignoring it. Nope, ‘don’t get it!
As societies and in our relationships of all kinds, things are held together by the human bonds we have between us. The subtleties and unwritten rules of human interaction are part of some of the stitches in the fabric of what holds us together. When we no longer feel any moral obligations and treat each other with contempt according to what we can ‘get out of’ each other, we are in trouble.
I genuinely don’t know what to do about this. I’m giving it some thought. I fear that I’m so far down the ‘this person is of no immediate use to me’ chain in my life that I need to be extremely careful with my own expectations. This is not a good place to be. I fear also that we are now in trouble on a much wider scale, however. What binds us together? Contracts and enforcement?
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2 年IMHO, I feel it's attention, and being mindful that's now at a premium - lack of these, show up as lack of respect and ... tertiary level, as reliability and reciprocity. Moral integrity is in consideration much later.
??Chief Dot Connector | Complexity Communicator | Organisational Ecologist | Critical Transitions
2 年On point Paul
Writer - Speaker
2 年Yes, that's how it is, particularly among the younger generations. When the party you seek isn't available, you're asked to call back instead of to leave a message, or to email when you're following two unanswered emails. When you call the message is to text because 'I don't clear my messages'. Some people want to do business via FB messenger. There is little if any respect for others, and any concept of service is fast evapourating. Perhaps the origins lie in the lack of respect, in the majority perhaps who have never been counted as valuable individuals in families of origin - instead seen as an unwelcome responsibility. People incapable of valuing others, have never learned for themselves what it is to be valuable - just because you exist. Alice Miller, author & psychologist imagines a figure of 90%. Not hard to believe given the trauma inherent in the modern psyche - war after war robbing children of parents, displacing peoples, disregarding their humanity. The fall out from this latest horror going on the Ukraine, just that alone amongst many aggravated conflicts over the last thirty to fifty years, will result in horrific psychological damage. When treated like fodder, you treat others like fodder.
Managing Director at British Theatre Playhouse and British Theatre Playhouse Academy| Art of Communication I Drama Educator, Arts Producer, Theatre-maker | Performing Arts & Music I
2 年Great sharing Paul King Hmm, what holds us together? Human beings are composed of energy - thoughts, emotions, beliefs, attitudes, behaviour, decency etc. So I hope we can be more tolerant, less judgemental and passionate about life ??
Create a Future-Fit Culture
2 年I’d say it’s important not to let the perception of declining standards in others encourage a decline in one’s own, and along with that, “love thy neighbour but don’t take down the fence”.