I am not going to lie to you. If we do not change something, I think there is a real chance we all go to hell in a handcart.
I am not a pessimistic person. Nor excessively optimistic. But I look at the behaviour of the people around me and I start to shudder.
Do you know what I see? Two categories of people. The first makes me sad. The second is the one that frightens me.
In the first category are people who, because of very low incomes and fairly low levels of education, cannot afford to educate themselves. Many cannot conceive of investing in themselves in any way. They do not read books, they do not go on courses, they do not work with coaches or psychotherapists, at most they watch the occasional documentary on Netflix.
Many of them are good people, I am sure of that. But the way they grew up, their childhood, their education, slowed their development at some point. Some of them, a few, wake up, fight, and manage to get their head out of it. Good for those who do.
Most of them do not get out, because they do not give themselves a real chance to get out. And they do not give themselves a real chance because they cannot. Few people in this category will ever read this article. Those who do have most likely already escaped and are moving towards the second category.
The second category is people like me and you. Educated, who understood at some point that they need to learn and develop. With a hunger for knowledge, with the courage to test new things, curious, people with a real chance of influencing the world they live in.
But do you know what frightens me about them lately?
That they are tired.
And being tired, they take bad decisions. Or, worse, they stop taking decisions at all. A lot of social media, a lot of series, FAR too much work. Running. All the more so in big cities, where the agitation around you sets the rhythm of your life.
Three or four years ago, I would give a burnout assessment to maybe one in twenty or thirty clients, where I suspected it was warranted. Today I do not even feel the need to explain what exhaustion and burnout mean before asking whether they want to do an assessment.
And out of ten clients I work with, there are at least seven who would need us to work on relaxation, recharging the batteries, recovery. Many have anxiety symptoms and feel overwhelmed by life. And rightly so.
Seven out of ten clients who come to me are in some form of burnout. Either physical, from lack of sleep and a chaotic pace of life, or emotional. They cannot stand people any more, they have problems with colleagues, with bosses, or worse, in their relationship or with their children. It is grim.
It is very clear to me how we got here. It is not at all clear to me how we get out of it as a society. Of course, I know I can help anyone who works with me. I know there are colleagues of mine, change strategists, coaches, psychotherapists, who can help too.
But do you know what? All the very good experts I know are booked solid. Many of them are close to burnout themselves. They have exhausted themselves in their constant attempt to help people who are exhausted. It would be funny if it were not so frightening.
And life in Romania is not getting easier. The country develops, another motorway gets built, but life does not get easier.
But life could be easier
It could. And it would not even take much. All it would take is for people to love themselves enough to prioritise their own health from time to time. Physical as well as mental.
But is it genuinely easy to get to a place of loving yourself? Of prioritising yourself?
I said this to a client the other day and she started laughing hysterically. Her word, not my judgement.
“Are you taking the mickey, Andrei? I cannot even pronounce what you just said. I would settle for getting to a point where I tolerate myself.”
That is where we are.
One part of us, less educated, does not know it can live better.
The other part, educated to the point of submissiveness, knows things could be better, but has forgotten that to love this world you first need to love the people in it. And to love people, you need to give yourself a bit of space. To breathe.
To give yourself what you need to receive. To at least pretend that you care about yourself. To give yourself a chance that, one day, you might love yourself.
And I know this road is different for each of us.
But I have already walked it with hundreds of people. It is a road that can be walked.
About the author
Andrei Roșca is a change strategist working one to one with founders, C level executives and senior managers who perform well on the outside while carrying a constant internal load. The work is nervous system regulation under real pressure, not motivation and not mindset. 13+ years of practice, 510+ clients, 8120+ individual sessions, through Whisper, Center for Strategic Change. Sessions are online, in English or in Romanian.
If this described your situation, start here: Coaching for overthinking executives. Or read more about my background and method.