The Hidden Cost of Efficiency: How We Lost the Art of Seeing Each Other

A podcast about play at work got me thinking recently. The guest was talking about how uptight our work environments have become - no room for fun, no space for joy. She made the point that being joyful doesn't have to mean you're "living your purpose," and it doesn't have to mean accepting that "work is called work for a reason." There's something in between - a space where we can find authentic satisfaction and connection.

As I listened, I realized she was describing something I'd experienced firsthand - the gradual loss of environments where you can simply be yourself. And once I started pulling on that thread, I began to see a pattern that extends far beyond the workplace. We've systematically replaced authentic human connection with surface-level solutions, focusing on wellness programs while forgetting about

actually being well. In doing so, we've lost something fundamental about what it means to be truly seen, heard, and valued.

What Authentic Connection Actually Looked Like

I still remember asking our company founder if he was a surfer dude. We were at lunch - this brilliant man who had coined the term "HMO" and pushed it through the Nixon administration, sitting with a few of us twenty-somethings at his favorite pizza place. While my colleagues looked slightly appalled at my casual question about his California upbringing, he just laughed.

That moment captures something I didn't fully appreciate then: I was working in a place where you could see the person behind the title, where curiosity about each other's humanity wasn't just tolerated but welcomed.

That job was at a small think tank. The work was serious - we wrote policy pieces about healthcare and conducted research that major media outlets would reference. But we never lost sight of the people doing it. When someone had a birthday or was leaving for another opportunity, we'd write elaborate poems to celebrate them. Our founder would decide on random afternoons to buy food and beer for impromptu gatherings. Since we worked in an old mansion on a lake, that usually meant grilling and riding around on the pontoon, feeling more like friends hanging out than professional colleagues.

Two of us, fresh out of college, were entrusted to create a semi-annual publication that would be cited by major publications. I even fielded media interviews. What kind of place trusts young people like that? One where titles didn't matter, where we supported each other genuinely, and where everyone felt valued for who they were, not just what they produced.

How Authenticity Gets Systematically Eroded

My next job started with similar energy - a scrappy startup where eight colleagues pulled their weight and challenged each other beyond what their degrees said they "should" do. The boss would thank us with cases of beer after particularly intense projects. We had that tight-knit feeling where everyone mattered.

But as the company grew from 8 to 75 people, something shifted. New leadership arrived who hadn't been "in the trenches" with us. Conversations moved from genuine connection to sales figures and growth metrics. People lost sight of the fun we'd had together, the mutual support that had made the work meaningful. We never regained that authentic community feeling.

From there, I experienced the full spectrum of workplace disconnection. Corporate environments where nice, competent people somehow couldn't translate their individual kindness into organizational culture. Consulting roles where you're never quite sure where you stand because you're not really part of the team. Management positions where the pressure to oversee projects left me sitting in meetings all day, so buried in timelines and deliverables that I almost forgot my partner's birthday.

When we're so buried in timelines and deliverables that we lose track of what actually matters - whether that's our partner's birthday or a colleague's perspective - we've created systems that leave no room for people to be fully themselves.

Even that original workplace wasn't immune - as a buy-out led to three separate organizations, I found myself working with someone who had not been part of that previous culture. In one particularly telling moment, my input was dismissed with, "I don't care what you think, just do it." It stung because just months earlier, I'd felt so heard and respected in that same environment. That experience taught me something important: not everyone approaches work with the same level of mutual respect, and authentic environments can be fragile.

Perhaps most tellingly, I worked at places that offered lunch-and-learns about wellbeing and mindfulness, gym memberships and healthy food options, while simultaneously creating cultures where people felt overworked and isolated. The irony was stark: wellness programs alongside a complete absence of genuine connection. What I began to understand was that we were addressing symptoms while ignoring the root issue - the fundamental respect for each person's perspective and authentic experience.

The Universal Pattern

But here's the thing - work is just a reflection of our bigger life patterns. This same pattern of replacing authentic care with surface solutions extends everywhere. We see it in how we interact with each other across all contexts, and it creates profound isolation even when we're surrounded by people.

Consider the different faces this disconnection takes. You can be in a loving relationship and still feel profoundly lonely if your partner doesn't truly see or understand your inner world. You can have tremendous support during a health crisis and still feel isolated because others' well-meaning attempts to help miss the mark entirely.

Just recently, a friend called to tell me about her cancer diagnosis. When I asked how she was doing, she said she felt "like an alien." Through our conversation, I learned that her sense of alienation wasn't primarily about having cancer - it was about how people were responding to her news. They were putting her in boxes, assuming she must be scared in particular ways, trying to comfort her based on their projections rather than truly listening to her actual experience. She just needed to be heard and accompanied, not fixed or categorized.

I think about people who've lost their parents too early and how that creates a particular kind of rootlessness - a sense that foundational connections have been severed, even when other loving relationships exist. Or those going through major life transitions where familiar frameworks for connection no longer apply.

These experiences share a common thread: the human need to be genuinely known and accepted, to have our authentic experiences witnessed without judgment or premature attempts at resolution.

What We've Lost - And Why It Matters

What we've lost - whether in corporate conference rooms or hospital waiting rooms or our own living rooms - is the ability to truly see the person in front of us. Instead of taking time to understand where someone actually is in their experience, we make assumptions. Instead of curiosity about their inner world, we maintain careful distances or offer quick fixes.

This happens when we prioritize efficiency over connection, when we treat people as problems to solve rather than humans to understand. And here's the thing - this isn't about bad actors. The managers making these decisions are human too, caught in the same systems. So are the parents rushing through bedtime routines, the neighbors keeping polite distances, the friends offering quick fixes instead of deep listening.

At work, this might look like diving straight into agenda items instead of checking in with people's actual lives. In personal relationships, it might mean immediately trying to cheer someone up instead of sitting with their experience. We focus on wellness when what people actually need to be well is that fundamental sense of being part of a community, being respected and trusted, being genuinely heard and seen.

But here's what I keep wondering: Why can't we create more space for people to show up authentically? What would shift if we stopped treating efficiency as more important than recognizing each other's humanity? When we're so buried in timelines and deliverables that we lose track of what actually matters - whether that's our partner's birthday or a colleague's perspective - we've created systems that leave no room for people to be fully themselves.

This disconnection touches every aspect of how we structure our communities and societies. And that means we all have opportunities to create small pockets of change.

The Path Forward: The Vibrant Middle

So what does real connection look like? What would it mean to prioritize wellbeing over wellness, authentic care over surface solutions?

It starts with recognizing that genuine wellbeing isn't found in the extremes. We don't need to swing from cold professionalism to forced intimacy, from complete independence to unhealthy dependence. Instead, we can find what I call the Vibrant Middle - that space where we can be both professional and human, both individual and connected, both honest about challenges and open to possibility.

You never really know what someone is going through unless you take the time to see them, hear them, and approach them from a place of curiosity rather than assumption.

In workplace settings, this might mean advocating for meeting structures that acknowledge people's humanity alongside their productivity. It could involve modeling the kind of authentic interest in others that we want to see reflected back to us. It means creating environments where asking someone about their life outside work isn't crossing a boundary, but showing care.

In our personal relationships, it means learning to be present with others' experiences without immediately trying to fix or categorize them. It means creating space for the full range of human experience - the messy, uncertain, non-linear parts alongside the celebrated milestones.

And in our communities, it means recognizing that our individual wellbeing and collective health are intimately connected. When we feel genuinely seen and valued, we have more capacity to see and value others. When we experience authentic care, we're more able to offer it.

The path forward isn't about returning to some idealized past, but about consciously creating environments where human connection can thrive alongside productivity, efficiency, and progress. It's about remembering that behind every role, every diagnosis, every challenge, there's a complete person worthy of curiosity, care, and respect.

Because here's what I've learned: you never really know what someone is going through unless you take the time to see them, hear them, and approach them from a place of curiosity rather than assumption. The surface rarely tells the whole story, and authentic wellbeing emerges when we create space for the whole story to unfold.

What would change in your daily interactions if you approached each person

with that kind of genuine curiosity and care?

How might our communities transform if we prioritized

authentic connection over convenient solutions?