Quiet quitting when doing nothing at all is serious work

Representational image. (Image source: Shutterstock)

When I decided to hang up my boots in the midst of the pandemic, and head for the hills as soon as the lockdown was lifted, many were flummoxed. Well-wishers felt I still had fire left in the belly that I could use productively both for myself and the organisation I worked for. Some others, I am told, called me a loser behind my back.

Initially, I had difficulty answering the “what do you do (for a living)?” question. People refused to believe me when I replied “Nothing”. They thought either I was being facetious or plain lying to disguise my unemployment. However, now I have learnt this new term — ‘Quiet Quitter’.

So, I say with pride that I am one of the pioneers of the “Garv se bolo hum vela (unemployed) hain” movement. That seems to have earned me some respectability in this little planters’ town in The Nilgiris.

But the questions do not end there. “How do you keep yourself busy? Do you play golf, bridge, or tennis? Are you into farming? Then how do you spend your time?”. Earlier I would say plainly “I don’t know what I will do throughout the day, but I still don’t have any time to spare”. But now I put it with a little more sophistication — “I practise the art of doing absolutely nothing”.

To be clear, before calling it an early day, I had an 18-hour, seven-day week job that paid me a decent salary. More importantly, it was one of the most satisfying stints of my career. Having suffered a toxic and insecure boss before that in another company, I was enjoying the free hand in reinventing a legacy organisation, building brands, developing people, and a talent pipeline. Professionally I had not reached the end of the road yet and had a lot to look forward to. So, leaving it all was not an easy decision emotionally, and financially. But at some point, the penny dropped, and I had made up my mind.

Without doubt COVID-19 was a life-changing event. It was a rude intimation of mortality. One saw several friends, relatives and young colleagues fall prey to it. The extended lockdown allowed the time and space to reflect on what mattered. I had built this house some seven years ago with the idea of spending the later years. A sizable amount of my earnings went into it. Suddenly, realisation dawned, what if I was not able to enjoy it not knowing how many days one had left on this Earth.

Cut to the present, it has been two years since I moved to this little hideaway. Of course, there were costs involved — most important of all was losing the steady income stream that required substantial trimming the size of the coat. Have I regretted it? Not a bit. I would not have traded it with anything else. The occasional LinkedIn posts about latest accomplishments and elevations of contemporaries or pink paper reports about their astronomical pay checks are at best moments of pause, but not of repentance.

The answer to it, I believe, lies in recognising and being aware of the changing priorities of life. ‘Purpose’, the term that is flogged relentlessly by today’s strategists and career coaches, for me is an overarching concept that spans over our entire life. Condensed into a capsule, it is all about how we evolve to become a more superior human being than what we were born as. However, priorities are like lighthouses that direct us on that journey which by definition is like sailing through the seas with its shares of ups, downs, and turbulence. Staying on course is the job of a skilful navigator —  aka a high achiever.

So, today when ‘quiet quitting’ is a woke term and it is projected as a ‘revolution’, the winds of reality might blow over. This too shall pass.

Charles Handy, my favourite management thinker and philosopher, talked of a portfolio approach to life. At different stages our needs and idea of fulfilment will shift, and we shall need to re-engineer and sometimes even reinvent our lives. Gail Sheehy, the psychologist, also talks of something similar. However, to be successful and satisfied we must give it all we have. A total immersion of the heart, body, and soul as it were. That usually means not just 18 hours a day — but generally 24X7.

That is why someone like me ‘with nothing to do’ still has no time to waste — because doing nothing is also serious work.