Are you loyal… to a fault?

The Cambridge Dictionary people define loyal as “firm and not changing in your friendship with or support for a person or an organization, or in your belief in your principles”… derived from the Latin term legalis which translates to “quite possibly screwing yourself.”

(*Insert my look of consternation here*)

Are you giving or showing unwavering support or allegiance to the nouns in your life—the people, places, or things? Possibly to your detriment? Are you currently…

• Loyal to a job that’s not all that loyal back?
• Loyal to a friendship that’s taking more than it’s giving?
• Loyal to a hobby that’s no longer riveting?
• Loyal to a romantic relationship that’s lifeless and/or loveless and you’ve given it a shot—several shots—but it kind of sort of needs to be declared dead?
• Loyal to a house that holds memories but is more of an albatross around your neck, what with the plumbing problems and let’s not even mention the termites?
• Loyal to the church that you were raised in that’s not jiving with your morals so much these days?
• Loyal to the non-profit you’ve been volunteering at for the last six years, even though you have zero discretionary hours available to devote to it?
• Loyal to your brand of car/ clothing/ cereal, when there might be even better/ cheaper/ tastier versions out there for you?
• Loyal to a pet you adopted from the shelter who never comes out from behind the furnace, even after seven months? (Oh geez. It’s okay to be forever-loyal to Furnace Kitty.)

A former client shared that her job had become untenable; her boss was The Absolute Worst, but she didn’t want to leave her colleague behind. I asked (in my head) if her colleague was a minor, incapable of making her own decisions. I asked (out loud) how long she was going to let her lovely-but-life-deflating-sense-of-loyalty rob her of aliveness. “Do you see yourself in this job two years from now, still putting up with The Jackass, out of loyalty for Kimmie?”. Sometimes it helps to exaggerate a point over time.

One woman at a workshop I led last month shared how she was unhappy with her hair situation but didn’t have the heart to leave her stylist of almost ten years. (I thought we all just ghosted our hair people after two less-than-stellar visits?) Now we’re letting untamed loyalty ruin our hair?

A friend of mine stayed in a sorta-sad, out-of-the-way hotel while we attended a conference, just to build up her Marriott points. “I wish I was staying here with you guys,” she confessed, while summoning her Uber to take her off-off-site. “But the loyalty points…” her voice trailed off.

(*Insert my look of consternation, even more consternation-ey than before*)

That whole sunk cost fallacy thing

You know that cognitive bias where we’re disinclined to abandon our course of action because we’ve invested a bunch of time, money, or energy into it already? Humans: we’re such suckers in the ways we dupe ourselves.

It’s not a reason to stay at The Company You Work For if it’s siphoning your soul out your orifices, just because you’ve spent 17 years there “and that’s a lot of time!”. Indeed.com tonight, indeed.

Just because you’ve made it to purple belt it doesn’t mean you have to earn your black belt. If you dread every unfun Tuesday night full of karate chops, ditch the dojo.

Even though that blazer cost a pretty penny landed you that Big Job back in 2017, it might be time to drive it to Goodwill if it’s not fitting you anymore. Ruthlessly purge your closet and revel in how light your life feels.

It’s not necessary to brunch with Mindy every single Sunday because “we’ve been friends since the first day of kindergarten,” if she’s a vitality vampire and sucks the energy out of you. Mindy might make the quarterly brunch rotation and that’s okay.

The time, money, and energy has already been spent. You have a whole life in front of you, waiting to be lived with full gusto. Cut that bait, baby.

The uh-oh part

Here is where I am going to ask the questions we’re all suspicious of but don’t want to approach: is it amped-up loyalty we’re succumbing to… or is it apathy, complacency, or resignation?

(*Gasp*)

Apathy is a lack of passion, emotion, or excitement—and I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here, when we stay in a dead-end job for too long, for example. It’s not that we’ve thrown in the towel, it’s that our instinct is to hold onto the towel. Are you apathetic with parts of your life, or is it loyalty-gone-awry?

Complacency “works quietly, an often subtle drift into an easy self-satisfaction with one’s efforts and accomplishments (no matter how meagre). Complacency does not cause evil or mediocrity; it is a vice that allows these to exist.” Does this description sound familiar? Are you just satisfied enough with your less-than-satisfying situation?

And what about resignation? One philosopher shares that, “the lack of effort on the part of the complacent person is ultimately due to sense of satisfaction, and a culpable belief that one has performed adequately; the lack of effort on the part of the resigned person is ultimately due to a culpable belief that further efforts are near futile or bound to fail.” Does that sound like you? Resigned?

So why do we overplay loyalty?

When it comes to misplaced loyalty, where’s the payoff?

There are no brownie points for going down with the ship in a brink o’ bankruptcy company (okay fine—unless you are actually getting some kind of payout).

There’s no prize for sticking it out in a dead-end marriage.

Attending mass every Sunday, when it ruffles your moral fibers, won’t make you a saint.

Sure, we accrue loyalty points at our airlines and hotels and burger joints—but the payoff isn’t always worth it, especially when you’re staying in Hoboken and the conference is definitely not in Hoboken.

Even the subtlest loyalties might be draining your aliveness in a slow-but-sure leak; it’s possible that these loyalties can stack up and create a lackluster life.

I’m not advocating for fleetiness (my word for the opposite of loyalty); by all means, be a loyal friend/ employee/ brand consumer. Don’t be a fleety dick! But be on the lookout for overplayed loyalty—when you’re sticking with someone or something out of a belief that you have to… or because you mindlessly defaulted to staying in place.

Ask yourself if you’re apathetic, complacent, resigned, or maybe even just plain lazy or scared to make a change that needs changing. All of those options are normal and okay—you just need to be honest with yourself. There was a time I stayed in a work role because I liked the idea of being loyal to the team, but I was really just afraid to initiate a change. Both things were true: I did value loyalty to the people, and I also wanted to get outta Dodge. Loyalty was a landing pad for me to feel better about myself while I wrestled with how to revamp my career.

Life’s too short to let loyalty keep you from living like you mean it. Love yourself for caring about others, and now love yourself by leaving the situation/ person/ job/ cereal. There’s a better granola out there, waiting for you.