Are we in a flakiness epidemic?
Last week, my French teacher cancelled our class at the very last minute, for the second time in a row. One last-minute cancellation is fine, life happens; I rearranged my day and said nothing. Then it happened again, the very next lesson, with the same casualness and the same unspoken assumption that I would simply adapt. This kind of behavior is a statement about how much my time is worth to you.
A few days later, over lunch, I met someone who had spent ten years living and working in Japan. I asked him what he appreciated most about his life there, and he didn't hesitate: respect. Respect for other people, and respect for the rules, written and unwritten, that make life in a society agreeable, or at the very least workable. Being unreliable has real consequences there, he said. Here? We both agreed it's close to none.
Those two moments reminded me of a video I made a few months ago, asking whether we are living through a flakiness epidemic. It was inspired by an article about the growing habit of cancelling commitments at the last minute, or simply not showing up, without explanation or apology. There were even stories of people skipping weddings and funerals with a text message.
The author wanted to understand why that may be. Technology seems to be a part of it; cancelling by text costs nothing compared to a phone call where you have to hear the other person's voice and make the effort of coming up with a convincing excuse. Another reason that came up very often was putting oneself first no matter what: guarding one's wellbeing, one's energy, one's mental health. As someone with a long personal history of eating disorders, I take mental health seriously. And precisely because I take it seriously, I think using it as a blanket excuse does a disservice to the people genuinely struggling, while eroding something we all depend on.
This new approach to commitments is making us more individualistic, attentive only to ourselves and our inner circle. And that's beginning to have repercussions on society at large. Every kept commitment is a small deposit of trust; every broken one is a withdrawal. When enough people stop showing up, we all start planning around each other's unreliability. We double-book, we confirm and reconfirm, we discount every yes. My dentist's assistant sent me a reminder on a Saturday, messaged me again two hours later because I had failed to promptly reply, then finally called me to confirm, all the while I was trying to disconnect and enjoy a morning at the hammam. I was quite annoyed, but I also understand that they've been burned before by patients simply not showing up.
Once upon a time everybody knew you were only as good as your word. Somewhere along the way, that started to sound quaint, and I'm not okay with that. I make an effort to keep my commitments, so I've stopped extending unlimited credit to people who treat their word as optional. Not with anger, simply with the same respect for my own time that I try to show for other people's.
Have you noticed reliability declining around you? And what do you do when someone repeatedly treats your time as negotiable?
"Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
