In the midst of crisis, lies great opportunity

According to the internet, this phrase (with a few modifications) was said by Confucius, Einstein and Merlin Monroe. Whoever was the original author of the saying, they clearly didn’t predict the endless ‘opportunities’ of the 2020s. Let’s be honest: the years that followed after, were definitely something that time travelers would have wanted to avoid.

In 1976 Erich Fromm wrote in his fundamental book “To Have Or To Be?”: “We are a society of notoriously unhappy people: lonely, anxious, depressed, destructive, dependent — people who are glad to have killed the time that we are trying so hard to save”. He argued that future technological progress will help us to reduce ‘egocentrism’ in order to fulfil human lives with art and studying of nature, but…
‘Anxiety’ hit its ‘google search peak’ in March of 2021 and it has been pretty high ever since, still it’s really difficult to arrange research without falling down the darker rabbit hole.

We already had a phase with a weird resemblance to the current situation. In 1999, when the Y2K Glitch was discovered many people were worried not only because of their calendars: but the global future was uncertain, yet capitalism became king. Interestingly enough, this emotional and financial limbo gave us arguably the best year in cinema. Neo was escaping his cubicle hoping to figure out ‘Matrix’, The Narrator was so overwhelmed by infinite brands and cable ads that he created ‘Fight Club’ out of boredom. And ‘Being John Malkovich’ showed the world where people are ready to place themselves into someone’s headspace in order to avoid their dead-end jobs. Yeah, this generation was so overwhelmed that they even captured ‘workplace burnouts’ on the big screens. Still, we were lucky to receive the unique artistic perspective of humankind’s hysteria during the millenium, but how should artists reflect what is happening in the “now”? Oh, sorry, they’re completely occupied by NFTs… And we’re getting a resurrected ‘Matrix’ soon? Yay!

But there is still room left for optimism left Alex Cornell, designer and author from San Francisco, wrote a book “Breakthrough!” using one simple tool. He emailed his creative peers one question: “How do you handle your creative blocks?” The spectrum of answers was so insightful the book was destined to become an inspiring guide to elaborate and support creativity.

We’ve decided to explore ‘stress’ in a similar manner. We asked our friends: “Have you ever felt anxiety, workplace burnouts, and other anxiety-related issues? What helped you to overcome those states?”

Warning: the answers could be inspiring

Sam, Chief Technology Officer:

When my friends and I founded our first startup, I guess, I wasn’t ready for such waves of success. I’m not trying to brag, it was just a combination of enthusiasm, tech curiosity and some of our parents’ money. Man, there was a lot going on when we popped up! Fancy events, big meetings, new people, and you still need to be efficient all the time. I was in my twenties and I had anxiety about missing something important. So I made a bald move: I took a long vacation.

I rented a nice cabin in the woods and got rid of all my digital devices. I meditated, hiked and read for the whole month. ‘The Moon and Sixpence’ by Maugham resonated with me on a higher level. Many people say the story was loosely based on Paul Goughen’s ‘impostor syndrome’, but to me it represented the true passion and aspirations of yours.
And tech was always my passion, why should I ignore it?
I came back to my duties right before the “unspecified virus of unknown origin” hit and my recent decision made even more sense then. As CTO I was responsible for the company’s adaptation to the new normality.

The pace was higher than ever, but I wasn’t exhausted, and on the contrary, I felt calm and more confident than I was before. We shifted to a decentralized workflow and re-engineered processes within 2 months. I empathised with my co-workers and encourage them to keep a life-work balance.
Sometimes I allow myself to ‘teleport’ to this cabin in the woods: I spend a day without notifications and tasks, just me, my thoughts and good books.

Alice, Illustrator & Digital Artist:

To be an artist was always my dream. I really appreciated my time: I could be touched by vintage shoes from the 70-s yet stream spotify via my intergalactical fruit gadget. The internet helped me to present my art for the people, but I have a confession to make: I’m a terrible procrastinator. I mean, I could spend weeks creating stuff. But there were moments where ‘weeks’ contain a week of senseless browsing my feed and a couple of days of actual (hectic!) work. That’s why I could occasionally/often fail to meet deadlines and it makes me feel terrible every time.

I’m thankful to my parents, because they have been my biggest fans since day one. When I told them “I want to become an artist” they were very supportive. Unfortunately, ‘support’ doesn’t equal ‘comprehension’, especially when we spoke about our minds and souls. During one of my huge projects I had a really unpleasant panic attack and I was just scared to tell my mom and dad about it. As a child, born in the 90s, I went to seek my answers online.
The first revelation that struck me early in the research; is that I’m not alone. And that sounded promising to me. The second revelation was that I need to develop new habits like journaling and breath exercises in order to beat my deadline issues. I discovered the application to “Breathhh beta”, so I gave it a chance. I’m excited to work on my mental well being and I’ll keep you updated on my further improvements.

Let’s admit it, the stress we experience is a problem and it is real one. The hardest thing about stress is that you usually feel very small and possibly even alone, when faced with it. But what we all must remind ourselves of is that, we could still beat it despite the ‘size’ or other disadvantages of caused us. Remember, what helped David to beat Goliath in their iconic fight? Preparation, self-awareness, confidence.

We’re getting closer to launching our application of Breathhh, which will become a simple guide into the world of calmness, balance and discipline. Take a deep Breathhh and sling that rock into the monster’s eye (metaphorically speaking, of course). Stay tuned and have a wonderful rest of the year!