Quiet Quitting, or Quiet Living?
by Sarah Di Troia
(Reading time: Less than 3 minutes)
It was 2004, and I was seven months pregnant with my first child. Throughout the summer, I worked every weekend in our small backyard — digging, planting, painting.
Our next-door neighbors that summer were visiting from Europe. The houses on our street are close together and they had a perfect view of my nonstop gardening routine. When we all eventually sat down for a meal together, they asked many questions about why, heavy with child, I was in constant motion.
I remember thinking at the time (I confess, with a bit of condescension) that Europeans don’t value hard work. All these years later, it occurs to me that my neighbors were inviting me to value living.
It’s Time for a Change
You’ve probably heard about “quiet quitting.” This relatively new term describes a phenomenon in which employees consciously hold back on the amount and intensity of work they do. No weekends, no evenings, no hours producing without a break.
It’s often portrayed as slacking, cheating the company, or letting down coworkers by not being a team player and “giving it your all.” This rhythm of busyness has become the pace for our lives.
Living a Total Life
There is a false perception that one’s degree of busyness is what drives personal and economic value. Neither is true.
For example, 70 companies in Britain are in the midst of a six-month experiment in which all employees are working a four-day week. The vast majority of these businesses report that productivity has either stayed the same or improved; more than three-quarters are considering continuing this way indefinitely.
The notion that a company can or should own your all is misguided. Women in particular have always known this as we have been burdened with a disproportionate share of household responsibilities and the need to juggle work and family life, never being able to give entirely to either. The result has been reduced earnings, underrepresentation in boardrooms and the C-Suite, and the persistent drumbeat that we should “lean in” and that it is all somehow our fault.
Let’s Embrace Quiet Living
It’s time to think about life in totality – work is just part of the pie and nobody, no matter what they pay, owns you.
Labeling boundary-setting as “quitting” is a way of demonizing what we all know, which is that you can’t work all the time. It’s never been true; it’s just an ideal that has been held up. It’s not possible and it leaves us all with the feeling of coming up short.
Quiet living is about working better and, in the process, unlocking the diversity of things that bring you balance, joy, and fulfillment. Quiet living is an invitation to value life.