Are we work-obsessed?

“Great minds talk about ideas. Small minds talk about people.”

I don’t know who said it or where the above quote originated from, but it has certainly been doing the rounds on Twitter feeds everywhere.

And I must say, I beg to differ. When did we become a society so obsessed with big ideas, big deals and big clients that we regard these topics of conversation as more interesting than our fellow human beings?

Every piece of communication I see is crammed full of business-speak, with people either advertising their work or commending another on his or her achievements. In fact, these conversations dominate dinners out with friends and social gatherings with complete strangers alike. If you haven’t achieved something worth an aggressively-written tweet or status update in the last month, you’re probably not going to be very interesting to the next person.

Of course, a career-driven society has become quite necessary, spurring on the conversations I just mentioned – we need to be multi-skilled, ambitious, outspoken and bursting with ideas to make it anywhere. This is fantastic for the more outgoing personalities out there, but a nightmare for those (yes, like me), who value days and long periods of time spent “switched-off”.

Switched-off doesn’t mean lazy; it means placing importance upon reflecting on life, spending time with friends and family and engaging in quiet activities or hobbies that stimulate the mind in ways that work never could.

A few minutes online and I honestly sometimes feel as though I can’t keep up. I seriously question whether I am a complete nobody, or a total layabout, for not constantly seeking out ways to do more. So many people are doing an absurd amount of things, or working several jobs, and are constantly busy. I absolutely admire these people for their energy, drive, tenacity and ability to blur the line between business and pleasure, but that’s not me.

The unfortunate consequence of this busy individual is that this person is perceived as more successful, attractive and appealing than those of us who shy away from the limelight and the constant activity - or ‘hustle’ - as they like to call it. Many of us most certainly have goals and are achieving them, but place equal emphasis on the less glamorous aspects of our lives – for us, admitting that we’re spending a typical Sunday doing absolutely nothing besides buying an ice-cream and going for a short drive is not an admission of time wasted.

Going back to the quote that set me off on this mild outburst, wouldn’t it be great to see and hear more conversations about PEOPLE? Where has the emotion in our lives gone? It all seems to be an endless and highly calculated process of ticking off the right boxes, and then sharing those ticked boxes with the world, and then being patted on the back for it… repeatedly.

Let’s work hard, and fulfil our dreams, but not get so engrossed in it all that we lose sight of the people in our lives and the parts of them we appreciate outside of their careers or skillset. When we think of our very best friends, or those that have made a real impression upon us, it’s more often than not those little nuances about them that we remember first – their ability to crack jokes at the drop of a hat, their OCD tendencies or their knack for bringing a sense of calm to a tense situation.

Let’s go back to “how are you doing?” being just that, and not a veiled version of “how’s work?”

It’s the people in our lives, and not the work they do, that make us go out and spend unnecessary amounts of money on half-price sushi and cocktails. There are simply far more people in the world than there are jobs, and I feel as though we have lost sight of that, in our endless pursuit of ultimate success.

Without the people we share our lives with, the successes we achieve in wealth are empty. Let’s go back to paying equal attention to both.