Resilient People (Part 3) – Overoptimized Life
We all know how buy our days can be. We tend to optimize. Us. Our life. Our work. Our teams. Our organization…
…and we understand it is not healthy.
The Swiss psychiatrist Daniel Hell, professor emeritus specialized on depression, recently gave an interview published by NZZ. For me the most relevant part was as follows in a free translation:
“we feel like we are in control of our lives. And we have a lot more freedom than before, fortunately. Anyone who believes they have everything under control and is constantly optimizing themselves is particularly at risk of falling into a crisis if something goes wrong. Because then he is ultimately responsible for his failure.”
To escape this trap may be one of the secrets of resilient people. They understand and appreciate a certain lack of control in their life. They build in time in the day for the non-controllable and welcome it. Quite a lot of peers I spoke to agreed that they spend more time than ever to to get things done which used to be easy.
When we believe we spend more and more time in our life to achieve less and less compared to the past, it might be a hint of an overengineered organization we are working for that lost control over automated processes supposed to run in the background. When we suffer, it might be a sign to see our friends. When we want to get it changed it might be time to talk to me.
