Wanting to unwind a bit after a recent meeting, I joined a friend and a colleague for a little informal get-together. Over glasses of wine, the three of us spent some time discussing relationships, people and life in general — no business talk, no agendas, no drama, just pleasant, interesting conversation. The next day my colleague remarked how much fun this very unbusinesslike interlude in our ordinarily busy schedules had been, and how much he had enjoyed chatting with my friend and me and, as he put it, “just being human.”
That rang a bell with me, and I started to wonder whether in our determination to get ahead and focus on the “big things,” we have moved beyond just engaging in casual conversation or otherwise “being human” with each other. Then, I began to get worried as I realized that in many ways I have developed various symptoms of “dehumanization” — like sending an email or text instead of calling someone, immediately putting on noise-blocking headphones whenever I get on a plane, and calculating how I can derive maximum productivity out of each passing day.
That sudden recognition that I have, in a sense, been sacrificing my soul to the demands of my various endeavors was enough to give me pause (even though I like to think those efforts are helping to save the planet). But that’s the best thing about such “aha moments”: they make you reflect — to look in a kind of mental mirror — and rethink the choices you are making on a daily basis. So thanks to our little get-together and my colleague’s subsequent remark, I now intend to focus at least some of my energy on creating a new filter for the person I really want to be, — and start asking myself whenever I do something like putting on my headphones on a plane or at the gym, “Is this really being human?”