Consume to Live. Create to Thrive.
- Melanie Troxell
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
🎧 Prefer to listen? Listen to Mile Markers
Did something or someone become better because I was here?
I like that question.
Routine and contribution and rhythms and connections, a sense of belonging and a sense of building—they all mix up together in a way that is very well represented by a national holiday called Labor Day, where work drastically decreases at the same time that it is celebrated across the country.
Labor Day 2020 had a much more uncomfortable feel to it.
Some adults were overworked, exhausted, and living through active trauma—healthcare workers, truckers, law enforcement, and others whose work did not stop. Millions of others were still very much housebound. People who were bored, lonely, and restless from months at home tried to get in one last—or perhaps the first—picnic of the year.
Nobody really knew when things would feel normal again.
There Are Humans Here Now
I remember this time being particularly challenging as a parent.
When the boys were little, we were not part of the “no screen time” folks in our world. We limited device time and tried to monitor what our children saw, but more importantly, we tried to keep teaching our boys autonomy, agency, the reasons for the choices they made, and how to think through what is healthy and what is harmful.
At large social events or dinner with friends, there was a very specific rule:
“There are humans here now. Please put that away.”
We required our children to practice social engagement.
Then, suddenly there was this weird and unprecedented moment in history where the only way for them to connect with other humans was to bury themselves in a screen.
Their phones. Zoom classes for school. Video game competitions with new friends from all the way around the world—and eventually a daughter-in-law! I can’t help but love how they met! 😂
We were navigating social consequences that were being built in front of our eyes, that no one had ever seen or experienced.
Of course, like everyone else, we had easily as many failures through this time as successes. Our boys struggled right alongside us. Mike, who is extremely extroverted, began working from home.
I went to New York City to fight demons.
It seems to this cardiac nurse that a lot of people during COVID developed a serious “heart” condition—and I mean the other kind of heart we talk about.
People became lonely. People forgot how to stand beside someone and love and support and build. So much of life began revolving around staring into pixelated versions of what used to be connection.
And I kept coming back to something I had told my boys for years:
Other things considered, you will find much more joy in creating than in consuming.
The Consumer and the Creator
There is actually a word in psychology that comes surprisingly close to this idea: generativity—the desire to contribute something of value to other people, another generation, or the world beyond ourselves.
One study of 1,109 adults over 45 found that generative civic activity was associated with lower depressive symptoms. Even more interesting to me, people who strongly wanted to contribute but reported little civic activity showed higher depression scores. Read the study.
A meta-analysis looking at 65 independent samples and more than 30,000 people found generativity positively associated with worker well-being as well as several positive motivational and relational outcomes. Read the meta-analysis.
That does not mean people get depressed because they aren’t working or because they don’t have a cause. Chronic depression, of course, is far more complicated than that. These associations do not establish that contributing prevents or treats depression.
But contribution is one of the things that helps human beings flourish.
We do better when we can see that our presence, effort, or work matters to someone beyond ourselves.
So one of the conversations I had with my boys about fighting off the situational depression that happens when you are living in a bizarre social jail was this:
I have always believed there is a big difference in the mental health of a consumer versus a creator.
I challenged my boys to write. To learn a thing that could help someone. To draw pictures with real pen and paper. To commit to calling a friend more regularly. To find ways to create and build.
We have life. We are life, and we must consume to live.
But I fully believe that we must create to thrive.
What Are You Building?
On this Labor Day, I challenge you to stop worrying so hard about your next KPI or your next scheduled day and think a little bit about your mental health.
Because Labor Day recognizes workers and their contributions. U.S. Department of Labor.
People long for accomplishment. Achievement. Contribution.
It doesn’t have to be vain.
We are wired that way, and it is OK.
And maybe one of a leader’s jobs is to help people see the line between what they do and what it contributes.
Not manufactured praise. Not “You’re all heroes!”
Actual line of sight.
This is what you did.
This is who it affected.
This is what became possible because you did it well.
So, as you consume your ice cream and picnics and your favorite game or your Netflix series with your family, your coworkers, or the people in your world, revisit what it is that you create.
What do you want to contribute?
What will you decide to build?
If you want help making that connection clearer for yourself or your team, let’s talk about coaching or bringing Transformationship Leadership Group into your organization.
Where are you contributing right now—and can you still see who or what is different because of you?
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