Society and communication

Today is a special day for working people. There used to be demonstrations celebrating the ability of common people to negotiate complex deals with their employers and fight for fairness. The working relations have changed, and blue color jobs are moving to developing countries or getting automated. As the jobs become more complex, the need to communicate is also gaining new layers of complexity. This post has been inspired by articles here, here, here, here, and here.

Democracy and politenes

The early societies were highly hierarchical. There was a very clear chain of command, and the language used was the language of commands by chiefs and patronization by fathers and owners. Granted, extreme tyranny could spur a revolt, but revolts were rare and there was no need to be polite. Athene’s democracy was a very different culture. Since the leaders were chosen by the people and could be easily removed by the people, the leaders needed to use the language of request, when talking to the common people. The polite ways of “if you do not mind”, “this would please me” probably comes from the early democracy and was not used outside of Athene until the 5th century BC. The rise of Athenian colonies, fall of Athene and Macedonian conquests in 5th-3rd centuries BC moved many Athenians and other greek-speaking people to different parts of the world. Greeks were educated, rulers and shrewd traders. The polite language was important in Hellenistic cities and was useful for trade and commerce. Quite soon the polite language became wide spread. We do not use commands anymore but request others to be so kind as to help us. This is one of the examples where the language changed the relationships and the relationships modified the language.

New relationships

We are experiencing a new sort of revolution. It is too early to say what this revolution will bring us, yet we all feel some of its effects:

The world is a global marketplace. We do not need to be in the same room to work together. In fact, we can be in the opposite sides of the world. We do need to understand each other, and we probably will rely on American language structures and social norms in our communication. These interactions will change the USA in ways we cannot foresee.
Robots are getting smarter. Robots are better than humans in doing most of our jobs. We learn to program and we teach the artificial intelligence understand our own language. Humans are still twice as willing to do what a human manager suggests than what a robot asks them to do. Probably the power balance will shift quite soon. The best model so far is so called “centaur model”, where the humans and robots cooperate using intricate management and communication rules.
Human population is getting older. Fewer people can work efficiently. With the help of robots, fewer people need work efficiently. It is still unclear what job will do people whose employment is no more required.
In 20th century we could feel safe about our social status. The 21st century increased social mobility. New technologies are replacing some established expertise, many companies get bankrupt. Many more companies get very rich very fast. With omnipresent electronic devices, we can probably forget about privacy.

The change is everywhere and it is influencing the way we think and talk, even if we are not aware of it.

Positive thinking and burnout

We are very quick to adopt positive thinking, the “can do” attitude.

We want to be passionate about the things we do. Passion can be great. Too much passion leads to obsessive behaviors. We are ready to “kill ourself” for our targets. As we work too hard and get deeply involved emotionally, so we get into higher risk to experience energy depletion or emotional collapse.
Everybody is compulsively trying to project how good their life is. Social media bombards us with messages that make us feel inadequate. Fear of missing out is a real thing. As we try to learn more and exploit every possible opportunity, we deplete our focus and willpower. Multitasking has a huge toll on our brain, and we end up missing more.
We want to slow down and recover. Periods of boredom and procrastination used to recover our strength, fuel our creativity and inject us with motivation. When I was a child I was bored all the time. My kids do not get a chance to get bored. There are so many things to do that we hardly have enough time to recover. Some people are even trying to minimize their sleep.

200 years ago there was a clear employer who made the employees work hard to achive very clear goals. Today we make ourselves work much harder for some ephemerial goals.
Productivity tends to increase our “burn rate” and the chance of a burnout. Psychologists and medicines reduce the demage, but fail to remove the root cause.
Mindfulness and motivation can potentially balance the effects of productivity and positive thinking on our life. To which extent can we embrace mindfulness in the core of our awareness and our lives still remains to be seen.

People are self-absorbed

We get much better in telling our own stories, and we are losing the ability to listen to the stories of other people. It is not polite to disagree, so we mask our disagreement saying “yes..but”, agreeing too fast, avoiding eye contact. In the age of president Trump politically correct may be less popular than a decade before. This does not mean we learnt to voice our concerns and listen to the concerns of other people. Poor communication may cause many problems: stress, dissatisfaction, disfunctional relationships. We are taught to sell our ideas in every debate club, presentation workshop and marketing class. Where do we learn how to listen?

Is grit a solution?

To some extent our willpower is limited. We can definitely replenish it, but we fail to invest enough energy in recovery. Instead we train our willpower, learn grit. If we meet obstacles we are expected to clench our teeth and perform. It will probably hurt, but we should learn to love the pain. “No pain no gain”.

Did we get addicted to the grit and the pain involved? Quite possible there are simpler creative solutions. Maybe we could distribute the effort differently, learn to do our job more effectively, simplify our life and ENJOY the outcome?

Some people are more resilient or lucky than others. Grit may produce wonderful results. It may also increase the rate of injuries, psychological traumas and burnout. Our focus is always with the people who succeed. The people who fail are too embarrassed to talk. We could practice compassion and self-compassion. These qualities were highly praised by all religions. Our secular mind might be too focused on “success” instead of more traditional focus on “virtues”.

It is fine to be mediocre

With ubiquitous social media, there is an unprecedented social pressure to excel. We constantly compare ourselves with other people and try to achieve something that is simply not right for us. If you are tired of the rat race try radical acceptance.

You do not have to excel. It is OK to be a good parent, a good engineer and a good person. You do not need to write books, own patents and send your kids to Ivy league school. The achievements you may desire may require sacrifices you are not willing to make. Do not force yourself to make these sacrifices unless you really want to make them. Happiness is not directly connected with our achievements, it is connected with having a good family and great friends, spending quality time doing things you like, have a productive job etc. Accept yourself the way you are. If you want to achieve something specific, go ahead. If you are not ready to pay the price, you can be happy the way you are.