It’s amazing how adapted human brains are to effortlessly catalogue each time we work hard, or we stay late, or we perform a task outside our job description, or we extend ourselves in some extra way.
It’s equally amazing how adapted our brains are to minimize or forget altogether every time we loaf, or we leave 15 minutes early, or we shy away from helping out a colleague.
Naturally it seems, most humans lean into some version of the, “I give more than my fair share,” fatalistic belief.
But, what if we also understand and embrace this meta-cognitive reality: That we tend to easily store and recall examples of when we’ve done more than called for and we just as easily discount the times we’ve been lazy.
If we can agree that our productivity increases when we work together. . . if we can agree that our advancement output as a whole group is greater than the sum of our parts. . . if can agree that working as a team leads to more meaning (and even joy) than working separately, we quickly see that our penchant to view our efforts through an individualistic, adversarial, and “I do more than most,” lens is unhelpful.
It is easy for our brains to convince us that we are doing and giving more than we should. But sometimes, our brains con us.
And if we know that, perhaps we should do and give more.
