Stop giving 110%
Skiing without poles is one thing, but skiing uphill is a lot of effort for nothing. (Nasjonalbiblioteket)
A few years ago, there was a bit of misguided revisionism around Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. The idea was that the tree was so self-sacrificing that she enabled the boy to take and never give, and by the end she was just a stump.
I have four things to say about that: First, she was a tree. Trees don’t need to set boundaries, nor do they have that luxury.
But even if you look at it as a metaphor for a human relationship, it’s reasonable. The tree gave exactly as much as she had. And as an old man, the boy valued the tree for exactly what she had. Lastly, it brought the tree great joy to give. She was doing it out of love, and she never felt coerced, regretful, or resentful.
In our lives, we should all find a way to give that makes us feel as joyful and free as the tree. But giving everything out of a feeling of inadequacy is not going to get us there. And giving 110% is just silly. What are we trying to prove?
It doesn’t make sense to give 110%, neither as a mathematical reality nor as an overall philosophy.
It is so tempting to qualify that, of course. I think about the brave men on the beach at Normandy. The 9/11 firefighters.
Okay, fine. Those who gave their lives gave more than they had to give. Their sacrifice was unquantifiable.
For the rest of us, most of the time, satisfying the requirements is enough. We shouldn’t do more than that. Giving more than we need to give in one area reduces the resources that we have for the other things that we need to do, leaving us exhausted and depleted.
We ought to be choosy about giving our all. We might as well save it for the moments when it will actually make a difference. So much of the time, it doesn’t. The already clean counter doesn’t need wiping. You’ve already studied enough to get an A.
When you do what’s necessary, and no more, what could you do with the energy that you free up?
I find it tiring to engage with those who think of themselves as people who give 110%. I expend my own energy worrying about them and trying to show appreciation for things I never asked for. They don’t think about what matters — they just do it all. They are like Christina Aguilera belting out a thousand vocal runs on the very first verse instead of holding back a little. They come early and stay late whether or not it’s useful. They put just as much effort into stuff that no one will notice as they do into the big stuff. They wear me out with their eagerness to please until they wear themselves out.
The sad thing about the people who give 110% is that the others will let them. They can always find people who will be happy to have them make all of their meals, do all of their laundry, and have all of their difficult conversations on their behalf. The irony of such an arrangement is that the person who is benefiting from the services of the above-and-beyond-goer will not be grateful. They will ultimately be resentful. They’ll feel trapped. They’ll look down on the person who is giving not only more than they have to, but more than they actually have.
People don’t really want more than we asked for. I don’t need my dentist to give 110%. What would that even mean? My favorite movies don’t need to be longer. Smiles from my nieces and nephews don’t need to be bigger. And every rookie piano teacher needs to learn that making the lessons forty minutes instead of thirty is annoying. That extra 33.3333333% doesn’t yield more value and it puts everyone behind schedule.
We need to trust that showing up with what we have is enough. And, in fact, we don’t have to give everything we have — just what’s needed. That allows us to conserve our strength and vitality for the moments when we do need to go all in. The rest of the time, we can let the rest go.
