2023 Wrap up

Every year, I tell myself that I need to get back to writing posts more regularly. Seeing that my last post was from 2020, I don’t think I’ve done a terribly good job. My excuse is usually that I don’t have the time, and that is true, kinda. I have the same amount of time as when I used to write regularly. It’s just prioritising. Although in the back of my mind, there is a nagging thought, what if it’s not just time. What if I just don’t have as much to say anymore? What if I have less rage? What if I’m accepting more of the unacceptable? That is a thought that’s much more scary than the lack of time.

We are now on the other side of the Covid-pandemic. It’s still around, but it seems people have decided to ignore it now. The rates of infection are still high, although the effects are mostly mild for the general population. Everyone is being urged to get back to work, ignoring the trauma that many felt during the last few years from lockdowns, friends and family passings, and the isolation felt by so many during this period. Not only is it back to business as usual, but there’s a huge push to increase productivity as if everyone was just resting the past 2 years. This new push is not going to end well for someone.

This has been quite a year on the professional side. I’ve decided to quit my job to focus on my work in burnout and creating more sustainable workplaces. I really think this is going to be the big struggle in the workplace for the next little while as we make the transition into the next industrial revolution. After the experience of Covid, people had a taste of a more balanced work life and they’re not going to give that up without a fight. At the same time, the dinosaurs in senior management and their out-dated mindsets about work will try all they can to bring everyone back into the office.

Talking to everyone around me and the global research on burnout that I conduct, I know that everyone is exhausted. Everyone knows that work doesn’t work anymore. The problem is that no one has a good solution, or at least, there are few leaders that are brave enough to challenge the status quo. Most people enjoy eating food and having a place to sleep so not working is not really an option. Most companies think people are just resources to exploit and that there will always be someone who wants a job. I think in 2024, something is going to have to give.

To me, it seems that people have been beaten down so much that we have developed a collective learned helplessness. We have normalised stress. We have accepted that surviving is our only mode of living. At the same time, we’ve become more insular from each other and ourselves.

This might just be an age thing, but it seems people have really forgotten how to have fun. This includes talking about anything else other than kids and work. It’s so rare to have conversations about random things anymore. Remember those silly conversations that had everyone cracking up?  There’s none of that anymore. Everyone is so ‘busy’ that we don’t have the headspace to expand on the impossible or the absurd. Instead, the conversations are mundane because everyone’s brains are too full of how busy they are.

One very fun thing that happened this year was that I did my first BBQ pop-up. Cooking the American style BBQ with a menu of Brisket, Pull Pork and some sides. Everything ran smoothly and I learned a lot about running a pop-up. I’m hoping to be able to do it a few more times next year. The idea would be to create a regular event that people look forward to coming to. Something chill with good food, drinks, and some fun. I think that’s really something that’s missing nowadays. People either don’t do anything, or it’s these huge events. What we lose is this community vibe. This space to meet your neighbors, talk to new people, create new experiences. Hopefully this little venture can bring some of that back. 

Generally, when I write these posts, they flow out pretty easily. The difficult is generally with what not to include. With so many things to discuss that’s happened throughout the year, it’s hard to pick just a few. This year, I can tell you that I’m struggling a bit here. It’s not that a lot hasn’t happened this year, it’s just not post worthy. It might be because I’m out of practice writing these posts, or my idea about what to share has changed. Not sure what it is, but it feels different this time.

Looking back at some of my old posts, I rant about politics quite a bit. I still do in real life, but something has changed in the last couple of years. The level of rantings has definitely gone down and I’ve been thinking about why that is. My best answer right now is that I think I have lost the passion because I have fundamentally lost faith in humanity. I don’t see a way back for us. We are losing the war against far-right extremism. We are losing the fight for our planet. We are losing the fight for our humanity.

What I think is the worst part is that most people don’t care to fight for what’s right. Most people are too wrapped in their own world of ‘busyness’ to care about anything else other than their immediate surroundings. They are so distracted by fighting fires in their own lives that they can’t see the real root causes. Even if they do, they don’t care. That’s someone else’s problem.

Most people are struggling financially, and it makes them single minded. It’s hard to care about wars in far away places or what’s happening to the planet when you can’t afford rent or food. This is the dystopia that neo-liberalism has created. This is exactly what they wanted. When people are in this state, they don’t have the time to critically think about problems or solutions. They lean towards easily understandable three-word slogans. They become easily fearful. They become easily controllable.

To be fair, I think there are a lot of people that would care, but can’t. For many of them, they are just hoping to make enough money so they can ignore the problem. World heating up? I’ll make enough to live in a house with AC. Wealth gap increasing? I’ll just be on the right side of that gap. People losing rights? Money can always buy you those rights. I could go on, but you get the message. There is so much stuff going on (there’s actually a word for it called Polycrisis), that seems to have made people switch off completely to these massive issues we all face.

I think that’s why I want to really focus on this work on burnout and reducing the number of hours people spend working. I think if people weren’t so ‘busy’ with work, they would have time to do other things, to think about something other than themselves. The other obsession I have is to get people to have more fun. I really feel like people have forgotten how to enjoy the world and really have fun (myself included). Having fun is a muscle like any other. We need to work at it. It’s hard to just turn it on after it being off for so long.

I know it sounds a bit silly, but that’s the impact I want to make. I want to see people enjoy life again. I want to see people thrive. I want to change the course for humanity. I want to prove to myself that humanity have not gone too far down and that it’s still worth saving. If not, I hope I can make my escape plan a reality and have a nice quiet place in the country somewhere. Maybe then, I’ll start blogging more regularly again.  

 

Have a wonderful year everyone.