I think he may be cancelled now, but John Mulaney had a quote in a stand-up special once about adulthood, and it boiled down to: “We overcommit to things to NOT disappoint people, and then in the process of overcommitting, we disappoint people.” Seems very true in most contexts, friendships, and relationships I’ve known. I am guilty of it too.
I think the same thing applies at work. My friend John has defined it this way for me:
What all is going on here? I think it’s a little bit more complicated than the narrative you might see in Fast Company, whereby everybody is so busy and so slammed and so innovative and so hustling all the time. Here are the general component parts in my brain:
- Communicating is hard for people in general. We cannot ever forget this. Most marriages, even the multi-decade ones, have frequent flaws or drops in communication. Friendships can drop for months or years with no comms based on one person’s life. At work it’s even more fraught, because not only are you trying to communicate timelines and ideas and big picture, you’re doing it to and with people who have vastly different connections back to work (salary, age, title, general work ethic, etc.)
- We often view ourselves as busy because it underscores the idea of being relevant: At work, people want to be seen as “busy” because it seems to indicate they’re doing something, so in a financial down-turn, they’d be “protected.” That’s laughable and wrong, but I’ve met many who think that way. You can also make more money in dysfunctional organizations by sitting in meetings all week and never “shipping” or “selling” anything, and while the meetings are soul-crushing, the $200,000 annually isn’t bad, so keep on keeping on! We don’t understand what “productivity” is at most places, and managers can barely define it themselves in non-revenue roles
- We don’t mind doing more work on the back-end of projects, because again, it makes us relevant: We swooped in and saved the project! The day is ours! I worked at this place called Virtuoso for a few years. We had managers that would seamlessly and drastically tank projects, so they could come in on the back-end and be heroes. It was pretty amazing to watch. But then the executive team would reward those people, so … why would you stop doing it?
- Everyone has a platform and talks about “community” and “connection” and “relationships” but doesn’t always mean it: Some of those words are performative to people. Just look at how many people preach that stuff online and then can’t name more than two of their neighbors, apartment/condo/house/whatever. It’s a staggering number.
So on the personal overcommitment side, I think people are kinda fine with overcommitting and then letting the periodic happy hour or lunch collapse into the ocean. We all know it’s common and it happens — “Well, see you in eight months, I guess!” — and I broadly think people organize their social existence into tiers based on where they’re at in life:
- Do stuff with parents and family
- Do stuff with family and friends
- Party hard with friends and randoms
- “Settle down”
- Do stuff with kids, parents, family, friends (periodically on the last one)
- Focus too much on work
- Talk about your goals and plans as an empty nester
- Wait a few years
- Work less
- Wait for grandkids
- Go to Home Depot more
- Text a few friends here and there
- Pass away
Pretty positive outlook, eh? Indeed. I’m a ball of fucking sunshine. I’m also not wrong, although it varies for every person. I just know lots of people who don’t prioritize friendships from about 29 to 54. Those are the years of prioritizing kids and maybe aging parents, and definitely work. I’ve been kid-less for that entire period (I’m 42) and you often feel like you’re on the outside socially. The good news as a dude is, most guys do as well — whether they’ve got zero kids, three, or 19.
It’s a complicated ecosystem, then — we’re bad at communicating, but we’re also desperate to have things to focus on and be seen as busy and relevant. At the intersection of it all, it can be hard to do work, be married, raise kids, or get to a 6pm meeting on-time.
Life is challenging, but beautiful. Go get it.
