Seth Godin often talks about the “race to the bottom.” For a business focused on doing everything possible to reduce cost and come in as the cheapest in their sliver of the market, achieving that goal generally requires giving up an awful lot along the way. The worst part about that race? Someone wins. They often win by stripping away the very things that once made them special. Is that really a race worth winning?
In the same vein, I’ve learned that hiding, the quest to become invisible, to go unnoticed so as to avoid ruffling feathers or making waves, is, as a goal, a pyrrhic victory, at best. At worst? It robs the individual of everything that makes them special, that can differentiate them as unique human beings capable of contributing in astounding ways. And it kills the spirit. It absolutely destroys it. Like the race to the bottom, is this a goal you want to achieve?
Recent research conducted by Imperative revealed that people who do not engage in work they believe has an impact have a 2% chance of self-reporting themselves as fulfilled. Without personal and professional growth, they have a 1% chance of reporting themselves as fulfilled. By making themselves small, by dulling their luster, by retreating in shadow, people attempting to hide will sabotage their ability to find fulfillment in their work. I’ve heard people say, “This is just a job, a paycheck. I come in, do my time, and get a paycheck. I live my life outside of these walls.” There are two problems with this logic.
First, we spend so much time at work that, following this approach, we would spend most of your day suffocating who we really are as living, human beings. Nothing healthy can come of filling eight hours a day, likely half the time one is awake, with meaningless, unfulfilling work. The second problem with this logic ties back to Imperative’s findings: not having meaningful work and not growing through work experiences all but assures that people who hide at work will not feel fulfilled outside of work. There is no real separation of work and home; there never was. We are human, and we are whole. We integrate whether we believe we need to or not. We cannot spend half of our waking hours in drudgery and expect to switch gears and find fulfillment in the hours before and after work. No matter how hard we try, we’ll always fall short. We will always rob ourselves of at least some of the happiness that is our birthright.
The first step is to stop hiding. Raise your hand and participate. One day at a time, little by little, step out of the shadows and let us see you.
Illuminate Possibilities 