Humble-Brag Hurrying or Humble-Brag Hammocking?
Life after the pandemic offers us a chance to slow down and reconnect
As we approach the end of lockdowns and closures and life begins to open up again, I’ve been reflecting on how I can preserve some of the slowness that the past year has brought. I’ve reveled in not having after-school programs to speed to every day. I’ve treasured the fact that our family’s one big outing a week is to go lounge on the grass in the park on Thursday afternoons. We’ve recently upgraded from a picnic blanket to a hammock we can string up between two trees. Nothing says slowness quite like a hammock.
But, let’s be honest. Life has a tendency to be a lot more hurry than hammock, and I’m starting to feel things leaning in that direction again.
Carl Honore, a journalist who wrote a book called In Praise of Slowness, has argued persuasively that our modern life is “marinated in the culture of speed.” He has studied the West’s obsession with busyness and productivity, and has uncovered its many costs. We live in “a world stuck in fast-forward,” he observes, “every moment of the day feels like a race against the clock.” This is not only an unpleasant way to live, but also an unhealthy one, he argues. It’s a cultural phenomenon unique to the Western world, and one that Honore feels is at the root of our society’s epic--and growing--levels of unhappiness.
“Sometimes it takes a wakeup call to alert us to the fact that we’re hurrying through our lives instead of actually living them,” Honore says. For many of us, the pandemic was just that sort of wakeup call.
But as the calendar starts to fill again, I’ve noticed old habits beginning to creep back in. And so today I’m revisiting a piece I wrote on this topic back in 2019. It’s another flashback from a pre-pandemic world, with some stark reminders of the decisions and revisions I hope to keep making in 2021.
Recently I was invited to the baptism of a woman in my church congregation named Cassandra. At the time I taught her five-year old son’s Sunday school class every week, but we’d never really connected beyond the exchange of a few pleasantries. But one day after church, as we were both hurrying our kids to the car, Cassandra’s husband stopped my husband and personally invited us to attend her baptism. I was surprised. First because I hadn’t even realized that Cassandra wasn’t a member of our church already, and second because a baptism is a fairly intimate occasion. It was clear that we didn’t really know each other all that well.
It’s rare in our culture that adults engage in a rite of passage like this—a ritual that marks a move from one kind of life to another, a covenant made with God and others, and a commitment made to become part of a new community. It’s a momentous occasion, and one to be celebrated. I was touched that they’d think to invite us personally, and my husband and I agreed that we should—and would—attend.
The following Friday night, the day before the baptism, I ran into Cassandra’s husband, and thanked him for inviting us. And then, almost as a reflex, I added, “We’re really going to try to be there, but we have a lot going on tomorrow. I hope we can make it—but we’ll have to see how the morning goes.” He smiled politely and said he understood and that he hoped he’d see us there. It wasn’t until I walked away that I fully realized what I had said. And I was horrified.
I knew that I had every intention of attending. Sure, I’d be racing home from my weekly mad dash of grocery shopping and errand-running to throw on a dress and get to the church by 11:00, but why did I have to emphasize that fact? Why impress upon him how busy I was, and what an effort it would be for me to attend what would be a life-changing event for his family?
In reflecting on this experience and several others like it, I have come to believe that the modern cultural norm of busyness is crowding out connection. But why is it so attractive--not only to engage in, but to advertise? A recent suite of studies has shown that in modern American culture busyness has come to be not just a cultural norm but also a status symbol. “How are you?” an acquaintance might ask in passing. “Busy!” we say with a sigh. And we are busy—busier than almost any generation in history—but we are also quick to advertise this fact as a signal of our importance, a marker of our upward mobility, and a merit badge earned for our great and productive daily contributions to society.
However, this humble-brag hurrying is a subtle but substantial barrier to meaningful connection. The minute we flag our busyness in a social interaction, we send a signal to the person we’re talking with that we don’t have much time to be with them—that we have important things to do and places to be, and that we’d better make it quick. This subtle cue cuts off conversation, isolates us from others, and insulates us from connection—which, ironically, is the one thing we really want. Connection is the elusive prize we’re actually reaching for when we subtly—even unconsciously—tout our own importance by mentioning our endless to-do lists and our "crazy" lives. We want others to like us, to think we’re important, to think we’re valuable. But I have come to believe that this cultural tic and the value system it represents may actually be a powerful driver of our loneliness.
While we might enjoy the instant gratification of a life lived at full throttle, and may revel in the immediate self-importance of knowing just how in-demand we are, at the end of the (very busy!) day, we have checked all the boxes on the to-do list but the most important one. We’ve distanced ourselves from others, and we find ourselves alone. Connecting these dots has helped me see that for all the thrill of the rush, and all the cache of an over-active lifestyle, the cost to be paid is dear indeed.
But I believe there’s hope as we strive to take a more mindful approach to our lives and our relationships. “By slowing down at the right moments people find that they do everything better,” Carl Honore reports. They’re happier, more productive, and enjoy more, deeper, and more supportive relationships. If I want to reconnect, I’m realizing that I will have to stage a cultural revolt by simply slowing down and prioritizing relating over rushing. And though that decision might feel like a sacrifice of the status I think I want, the hope is that it will actually be a route to the relationships I know I need.
Instead of “getting back to normal” after the pause of the pandemic, I hope to keep staging my own personal cultural revolt: To preserve some of the precious slowness that has seeped into my life. And to replace my old habit of “humble-brag hurrying” with a little more “humble-brag hammocking.”
Care to join me?