Mental health, in general

I was going to write about mental health in tech, because tech seems to be causing lots of burnout and sadness. But mental health is important, in general.

Why are we seeing increases in burnout, symptoms of burnout, depression or anxiety, and many thematic similar topics in the last few years? It's almost like an entire generation of very wealthy, moderately stable, truly independent people are traumatized. What could it be?

Maybe it is the increase of horrible stuff going down, and it's really quite terrible.

But maybe that is just an overflow of information, because news is everywhere and everyone is connected to what's going on.

Except, I tried this little experiment. Because I noticed I was getting really frustrated with the coverage and emotions emanating from the sitting president of the U.S. I did not need to entertain those feelings, because they were only of pure rage and that was not going to change unless he leaves office and I am no longer reading about him in the news.

In this experiment, I stopped reading the news.

This is a big deal for someone who reflexively opens the NYT app and scrolls through headlines (for the information), and subscribes to multiple publications with apps because I Love Reading.

I wanted to see if limiting my emotions to focus on what was in my immediate periphery (I had a lot going on in my mind), and being more present would help me actually get some sleep.

It worked, sort of. Because I was no longer hearing about the horrible things every day, only occasionally, it was easier to process hearing the bad things when I exposed myself to the firehose. But there was still this underlying sentiment of unease and unsteadiness, even though I was doing very well for myself, on paper.

Then I realized I was feeling burnout because I was doing something very unnatural for me, despite my overwhelming confidence in the quality of life that I was living with Steven. And Bao!