Quiet Quitting, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and the Parable of the Fisherman and the Businessman

A teacher’s take

Photo by sasan rashtipour on Unsplash

Allow me to establish two things from the get-go:

1. Quiet quitting is nothing new. Though the term is new-ish, it relates to age-old human realities: ever-changing priorities and the fact that time is limited.
2. There’s no agreed-upon definition for quiet quitting. In fact, different sources define it in vastly different ways.

Let’s begin, then, by establishing a definition for the purposes of this article.

What Is Quiet Quitting?

I’m going with the language from a 17-second TikTok video that went viral:

You are quiet quitting when “you’re not outright quitting your job, but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond,” and “you’re still performing your duties.”

The rest of the video goes into specific reasons for quiet quitting, which we’ll consider here separate from the definition. As we shall see, the why’s have much to do with who’s doing the quitting or talking about it.

Why Quiet Quit?

I’ve come across a great many explanations from all kinds of people. Some come from quiet quitters, others…