Caution: American Idol at Work

I wonder if there is a correlation between the golden days, when folks worked an entire career for the same company, and national prosperity. 

I also wonder if the skyrocketing number of people who are medicated through each day can be directly linked to the increasing "dazzle or die" corporate culture that seems to be the order of the day now...in the office...in the church...in relationships.  


It just seems like people are under an awful lot of pressure, in more and more areas of life, to "Wow!" nonstop.  Everything is competition.  It's like living in a pressure chamber that insists upon a constant state of perfectly measured paradoxes.


You must be in a continually balanced state of humble, but bold; authentic, but popular; beautiful, but organic; motivated, but not bossy; sympathetic, but not emotional; available, but busy, willing to learn, but totally skilled; flexible, but firm...and it goes on and on.  And if you cannot sustain peak performance at this complex high temperature setting then...

And it doesn't just happen at work... 

We are pressured to perform, produce, and perfect in our friendships, marriages, business relationships, churches, children...even our pets. Perform or perish. Satisfy the order of the day, or get put on the watch list for ejection...or is it rejection?


In a world where people live longer and the pool of "applicants" for the rewards of time, attention, and compensation is larger and larger, I guess it's easy to keep demands high and treat everyone and everything as expendable.


A lot of leaders are celebrated for having the ability to make the tough decisions and "make changes to the organization" that involve letting people go.  But I wonder what our national economy and our national health would be like if leaders were celebrated for investing in people...for really mentoring the people under their authority...For finding ways to carry the weak during the tough times, and build them back up to health and productivity...


I haven't done the research, but I have a feeling the Perpetual Perfect Performance Productivity Pressure Pot is killing us all from the inside out. 

Take two and call me in the morning...