Lessons from love and The Office

There are 2000 years of literature and film that depict suffering from this affliction. You dealt with your beloved’s indifference by eating ice cream and watching romantic comedies. Or you went out with your friends and drowned your sorrows. The point is, you had a script; you followed it, and then you moved on.

But how do you deal with it if you are the object of affection and you’re not interested? It’s a bit more disquieting because you have no cultural guidance. No one has written a story about the plight of the worshipped or the loved. And so you feel a vague unease, a guilt, a desire to tell someone about your predicament. But you don’t know how to express any of these sentiments, so you just pack it away and move on. Except you don’t. Not really. Not completely. In fact, studies suggest that the object of affection in an unrequited love relationship still harbors negative feelings years after the fact. Because they never knew how to act, how to properly process the experience.

In his book, Bull**** Jobs: A Theory, London School of Economics Professor David Graeber makes the case that this same sort of unease plagues the characters in the hilarious and trenchant series, The Office. While the antics of Michael, Dwight, Jim, et al. are entertaining, Graeber argues that the characters are acting out because they don’t know what else to do. The characters of the show are ostensibly working, but they never actually are working; they are instead pranking each other or having misadventures off site. They have no cultural touchstones for how to behave as they find themselves mired in a meaningless job, and so the characters in the show exist in a kind of existential limbo, making a living but in a job they find irrelevant at best—and soul-sucking at worst.

Should real people in such jobs feel guilty because they are making (often quite good) money for a job that they find meaningless? Should they complain that the work isn’t inspiring them? Of course not. Graeber explains that to do so would invite scrutiny from the boss and result in either being thought of as an ungrateful worker or saddled with more work. Graeber cites a startling study which concludes that the majority of workers in the United States feel that their jobs are bereft of significance; that, if their jobs were to be eliminated, the world would suffer not a bit.

How did we come to such a place? Why are so many people dissatisfied with their jobs? Graeber posits that humans have a need to contribute significantly to their communities. It’s been codified in the book of Genesis, wherein Adam and Eve are consigned to a life of toil because of their sin. It’s been reinvigorated in the “American Work Ethic’, by which a person’s value is judged according to his (and it’s historically been a “his”) actions. Graeber suggests that the bloated bureaucracy of the 21st century economy thwarts this human need to contribute meaningfully.

What, if anything, does any of this have to do with the college application process? Quite a lot, as it turns out, especially if you see the process of applying to college as a still frame in a longer film, a film that tracks the trajectory of a person from elementary school to ultimate career choice.

For how can we enter a profession that nourishes us if we haven’t taken the time to vet all the choices? How can we fully vet the choices if we don’t sample them first? How can we sample them? Where do we even start?

I would argue that’s what high school is for; ideally, students graduate from high school with an ability to manage their time, work with people, and locate and utilize available resources. This is called learning how to learn; which isn’t the same as merely checking a box on the way to achieving an ultimate goal. Box checking invariably leads to unreflective achievement, which might look good on a transcript but does precious little to help to instill in a student self-awareness (SO different from self-esteem). And self-awareness is critical if one is to know what one loves (or, sometimes more useful, what one hates), a necessary precursor to finding authentic meaning.

College admission officers can smell inauthenticity a mile away in the scripted activities of an applicant; in the flat essays of a student who sees the writing as a chore to cross off a list rather than as a chance to share a glimpse of who he essentially is.

But you can’t write that if you haven’t tried to find out essentially who you are.

Don’t be Michael. Don’t be Dwight. Entertaining though they may be.

Instead, fall in love recklessly. Risk being scorned for your pains.

You’ll know what to do. All you have to do is follow the signs.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!