A few months ago, I signed up for a seminar on existentialist philosophy. Because the existentialists were part of the reason I’d decided to study philosophy in the first place, I was thrilled to delve into the material. The great philosophers of the 20th century were awaiting me—Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and many more. I felt ready, getting a little more excited by each day the seminar drew closer.
Yet, unexpectedly, all this changed when, one day, I received a rather strange email.
The email was sent by the responsible professor and consisted of three neatly aligned, perfectly spaced-out paragraphs. First, the professor greeted us in Latin. Second, they told us that they were looking forward to discussing the existentialists with us. So far, so good. It was the third paragraph that got me. In it, the professor listed the required readings, describing how they’d like us to work with the material. It would be indispensable and obligatory, they said, to fully dissect these texts and study them with the utmost scrutiny.
The required readings totaled 2,000 pages.
I closed the email as I watched my excitement about existentialist philosophy roll downhill faster than Sisyphus’s rock.
To be clear, it wasn’t just the sheer workload I found so off-putting. After all, I’d been keen to study the existentialists. Rather, it was how I was told to engage with existentialism. Full dissection. Complete Scrutiny. Obligation. These are the commands for a surgeon or soldier, not an amateur philosophy student. In other words, my genuine interest in existentialism was corrupted by my newly triggered feelings of pressure, compulsion, and obligation.
After reading that email, I went from “I want to do this” to “I must do this.”
Now, I admit that I’m particularly sensitive to this kind of talk. When someone expects me to do lots of things and do them well, I find it hard to listen to my own needs and capacities. Instead, I try to please that person at all costs, employ perfectionistic strategies, and wallow in self-doubt. Even so, I find there’s a deeper rule to be found here. Namely, this: A sense of obligation inherently leads to resistance, inaction, and exhaustion. Often, it’s less about the task itself that makes it difficult and more about how it’s framed and presented.
A week after my signing out of the seminar, I encountered a particularly striking example of this.
I was walking around my neighborhood and passing a playground when a mother and her child caught my attention. At first, the child was sitting by himself, happily shoveling heaps of sand on top of each other. Moments later, though, the child was interrupted by the mother. “Time to go, honey, “ she said. “Dinner will be ready soon!” The child folded her arms in protest, put on a sulky face, and turned away. “No!” he shouted. “I don’t want to go!” A short stalemate ensued. Then, the mother tried to talk into the child’s conscience. “Come on, aren’t you hungry? It’s getting dark soon. We really must go home now.”
The child didn’t want to hear any of it. And so, suddenly, the dispute turned into an ugly scene. The mother dragged the child away from his unfinished sandcastles, picked him up, and seated him in the stroller. At that point, I’d reached the end of the playground, but behind me, I could still hear lots of crying and shouting.
As I turned around the corner, I suddenly realized that the child had mirrored the feelings I had when reading my professor’s email—except the child was far more adept at expressing those feelings. In either case, our tasks both seemed sensible at first: there was nothing inherently wrong with reading philosophy or eating dinner. And yet, when framed by the scaffolding of obligation, they transformed into the most undesirable activities in the world.
As I kept walking, I recalled countless moments from my childhood when I disliked an activity for the sole reason that I felt obliged to do it. I recalled hikes with my family, during which I felt forced to climb a big mountain. “For what?” I kept thinking. “This is dumb!” Then, I would trudge upward reluctantly, trying to signal my protest with each step. Never mind that today, I adore hiking, especially when the hike is long and the mountain is high. In fact, I could list dozens of other activities I used to loathe as a child purely because I felt obliged: playing the piano, playing tennis, studying, writing, reading. Today, these are my hobbies. I’ve chosen to fill my life with these things.
So, what’s going on here? How can it be that we enjoy the thing when we’re in charge but hate the thing when someone else tells us to do it?
Some fascinating studies highlight how tasks involving a choice increase our perceived motivation, competence, and alertness while doing those tasks. In other words, self-sufficiency—the feeling that we truly want to do something—gives us a boost. Feeling obliged, in contrast, debilitates. I’m curious how the playground scene would’ve played out if the mother had said, “All right, you don’t have to eat dinner. In fact, you can stay as long as you like.” I’m willing to bet that these magical words — you don’t have to — would’ve flicked a switch in the child’s mind. Chances are, he would’ve kept playing for five minutes before telling the parent, “Can we go now? I’m hungry.”
The funny thing is, I suppose, we don’t actually need a parent to tell us that we don’t have to. We almost always have the option to choose otherwise, to choose not to. It’s just that we forget sometimes. That’s how it goes for me anyway. So often, I laden myself with tasks, assignments, and obligations that I despise, even though I could just say no.
For example, when first reading my professor’s email, I initially thought: Well, I guess I’ll have to dissect those 2,000 pages. Let’s see how I can squeeze some extra reading time into my bursting schedule. It wasn’t until a few days later that I realized how absurd the assignment was and how, in truth, nobody was forcing me to actually read all those texts, let alone attend the seminar. I didn’t have to do anything. I was free to choose differently.
Whenever I can tap into this sense of non-obligation, I feel like a brick-loaded backpack is lifted off my shoulders. And then, ironically, I often find myself doing the exact things I’d previously detested. If obligation is the mind-killer, non-obligation is the mind-filler.
Of course, there’s one caveat to this idea of resisting obligation. What about activities that are obligatory by design? What about doing taxes, going to work, or following traffic rules? And what about activities where obligation can be useful? What about getting out of bed, exercising, doing laundry?
Well, strictly speaking, none of these things are obligatory either. It might sound a bit hippy-dippy, but really, we’re free to do anything. “It’s almost never literally the case,” says the author Oliver Burkeman, “that you have to meet a work deadline, honor a commitment, answer an email, fulfill a family obligation, or anything else.” All we need to do, Burkeman argues, is face the consequences of our actions or inactions. Another way to put this is that we can happily ignore any pesky commitments, deadlines, and chores coming our way — as long aswe’re willing to face the consequences accompanying that ignorance.
I’ve found it supremely useful to put this to the test, even in bizarre situations. Whenever I find myself not wanting to do something—getting out of bed, going to the dentist, attending a seminar—I try to reflect on the consequences of my (in)action and ask myself, in full honesty, if I’m willing to live with those consequences. Deciding on my seminar on existentialism was fairly easy: There were no tangible consequences of my signing out of that seminar (unless, perhaps, I wouldn’t be forced to read 2,000 pages of philosophy). Other times, it’s trickier, of course. Leaving a relationship, quitting a job, moving cities—how do you deal with that kind of stuff? And what if the consequences aren’t foreseeable to begin with?
As in so many cases, I think a quick answer is not what matters here, not necessarily. I see these phrases (“You don’t have to”; “You only need to face the consequences”) more as bullshit detectors for aligning my actions with my intentions, thus inviting more questions…
- Would I still do this if no one expected me to do it?
- If yes, how could I change my approach to act more effortlessly? What if this were easy?
- If not, am I torturing myself because I’m scared to face the consequences of saying no?
- If I hate a task even though it’s in my best interest, how could I complete it without clenched fists, if only for a few seconds?
The point of these questions, I’ve learned, isn’t to follow my first impulses, escape from my problems, and hop on a plane to Bali (bye-bye obligation!). No — the point, I think, is to become aware of why I am doing what I’m doing. The point is to awaken to the possibility that, technically, I don’t have to do any of this — and then, perhaps, return to my task with all the more delight and devotion.