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American Workers are Reaching a Collective ‘Not This’ Moment
An alternative theory of why so many Americans are quitting their jobs
Economists are always seeking a rational answer, backed by data and numbers. That’s no bad thing. But with all the articles looking for the data-driven reason behind America’s great labor shortage, I think the answer might be obvious.
If you ask me (NB: not an economist), the reason why Americans are quitting their jobs at a record levels— and being pickier about choosing new ones—is simple. What we’re seeing is a collective realization of what I think of as the ‘Not This’ moment.
Here’s the thing about Not This: It’s got little to do with rationality or logic. In my observation, it usually comes about in one of two ways. One is that you’ve simply had enough. You become convinced that the suffering of your current situation is worse than the suffering of plunging into the unknown, and so you jump. This can happen in relationships, addiction scenarios, jobs, places you live—whatever. When you reach this point, logistics and sensible choices do not matter. Your life is on fire, so throwing in some dynamite seems totally fine. You go forth and begin to extract yourself from whatever Not This has outlawed, no matter what it takes. It’s not hard to imagine many people in the hellscape of the last 18 months reaching that point.
The second way people reach a Not This moment is more subtle, but it’s the one I think explains the present moment particularly well. Remember back in the early days of the pandemic, when many people were baking bread, planting vegetables, spending more time with their kids, and going for daily walks? Well, what those people were also doing, in myriad small yet powerful ways, was honoring their bodies’ needs, perhaps for the very first time.
Maybe they were sleeping more, eating better, moving more. Maybe they stopped talking to a toxic coworker every day who jacked up their nervous system each time he or she walked into the room. Maybe they let go of a commute that zapped their energy and made them feel irate every morning like clockwork. Maybe they could sleep for 30 more minutes at the beginning and the end of each day. Maybe they stopped buying stuff they didn’t need to compensate…
