The Tom Cruise standard: Why you should give 100% some of the time

Action movies aren't my thing, but there's something seductive about watching Tom Cruise hurtle through the world with desperate intensity. The Tom Cruise run isn't really running. It's something between a sprint and a panic attack. Behind him, things explode, but he never looks back because looking back is for people who aren't Tom Cruise.

"The run" is perhaps the least exciting thing Tom Cruise does. In "Ghost Protocol," he scaled the Burj Khalifa with adhesive gloves. In "Rogue Nation," he held his breath underwater for six minutes. In "Fallout," he learned to fly a helicopter for a mountain chase. For any mere mortal, any one of those things would be a death wish. For Tom Cruise, it's a Tuesday.

In need of mindless escapism, I went to see "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning." Three quarters in and there's Tom, dangling from an airplane wing at 5,000 feet. Watching this absurd oath to the Cruise craft got me thinking.

When was the last time I committed to anything with Tom Cruise intensity? When did you?

I'd guess most of us operate at around 70 percent capacity and call it a good day. We're present, but not really; engaged, but not fully; tired, but for all the wrong reasons. Time flies whether you're having fun or not. The speed is the same. Only the quality of attention differs. I'm starting to realize that my careful rationing of energy might be the very thing that makes years feel monotonous when I look back.

The truth is I don't give 100 percent to anything. Not to my work, though I love it. Not to my friends, though I love them. Not to managing my well-being or color-coordinating my wardrobe. I spread myself so thin across everything that nothing gets the full force of who I am. I tell myself this is balance, but it feels more like a slow betrayal of everyone and everything I claim to care about. I'm managing life rather than living it.

We've created this culture of strategic disengagement, and it's not helpful.

This isn't just about emotional self-protection. Most of us are caught between deadlines and responsibilities, trying to maintain some basic level of fitness after 40. The luxury of single-minded intensity feels absurd when you're trying to remember if you fed the dog while answering work e-mails during a friend's dinner party.

But life's practical obstacles aren't the only reason we don't give 100 percent. There's something deeper going on. Full engagement makes us vulnerable. When you give everything to something – a relationship, a project or a conversation – you're completely exposed when it fails. We've learned that caring deeply amplifies disappointment, so we've developed ways of caring just enough to function but not enough to hurt.

The cost? We're losing our capacity for depth. When we protect ourselves from disappointment by withholding full investment, we also protect ourselves from genuine joy and meaning. We become people who can't fully celebrate successes because we're already bracing for the next challenge; people who can't fully grieve losses because we never truly loved.

The less we invest in experiences, the less meaningful they become. We end up in chronic mild dissatisfaction, not miserable enough to change and not engaged enough to thrive. The Pew Research Center found that 76 percent of adults feel "constantly busy but not productive." We're running faster while getting nowhere.

Take this article. Did I work hard on it? Yep. But did I stay up until 4am obsessing over every word? No. Because that's not sustainable when you have a life to maintain. I gave it what I could between other demands. That's how most of us approach everything. Maybe that's wisdom: Know when to give 70 percent so you can give 100 percent when it counts. But what if we've forgotten what 100 percent feels like?

Here's where Tom Cruise becomes instructive. He's made something like 45 films over 43 years: roughly one per year. Even Tom Cruise isn't making movies most of the time. The goal isn't maximum intensity all day long. It's about choosing our peak moments: the ones that deserve everything we have and really showing up for those. The rest of the time? Cruise control.

The question isn't whether Tom Cruise is mad for doing his own stunts. It's whether we're mad for getting comfortable with partial living. Next time I catch myself going through the motions – the distracted phone call, scrolling while someone speaks – I'm going to ask: "Is this worth my all?" Because here's what I learned watching Tom Cruise dangle from an aircraft: If the fall doesn't kill you, not living fully will.

Life is happening now. Look up. Look around. This is it. The difference between a life that feels rich and one that feels like sleepwalking isn't about what happens to us. It's about how completely we show up for the moments that matter.