Why Do We Neglect What's Really Important In Life?

Johann Hari and Tim Kasser.

That quote is by way of a Johann Hari TED Talk, but the actual quote is from Tim Kasser, a psychology professor in Illinois. Here’s the full TED Talk:

Ironically, I used a Hari talk one other time on this blog. It was about addiction, and paradoxically I wrote that post while sitting at a bar eating Rocket Tots. Perhaps unsurprisingly, six years later I still struggle with some of these topics.

Now, I want to take you back quickly to August 2015. I had moved to Fort Worth in July 2014 (a year before), and I was working for this luxury travel company called Virtuoso. The first six months were pretty cool, and I even got to go to Belgium. After that, it started to wane. My deliverables were unclear, in reality I should have been managed by someone in Seattle, my marriage was falling apart, I drank too much, etc. It’s a mix of bad job fit and my own issues. I ended up getting piped out.

Before that happened, though, I went to a big trade show in Vegas in August 2015. I came downstairs one night to wander the casino, and I see my entire team, i.e. everyone on my team except for me, leaving in cabs for a “team dinner.” It was heartbreaking. I got drunk with a co-worker that night, and my team came back (all together) and tried to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary.

I was miserable for that whole night, just drowning sorrows and wondering what I did wrong. I certainly didn’t feel anything about belonging. If anything, I felt hideously disconnected, depressed, angry, and confused.

My boss, Elaine Srnka, did a review of me a month later. When she went into some of the negative review parts, I brought up the team-dinner-minus-me. She said, “Oh, that still bothers you? Whatever.” That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever had a manager say to me. Yes, a violation of basic human tenets and needs should still impact you a month later.

I was gone 1.75 months after that.

Now let’s go back to the Hari talk above. Look at this section: