Peace in a Pod

I think one of the most simultaneously hilarious and stupid things we have done as a society is create a taboo around mental health. We do this bizarre thing where we all struggle in private and pretend to everyone else, who is also struggling in private to further or lesser degrees, that we are managing perfectly fine. We have the audacity to think that our problems are unique and that it is utterly pointless to talk to anyone about them, and that is assuming we even realise we are having problems at all. The prevalence of social media platforms like Instagram that only show the highlight reel have definitely ramped this up too. ‘I am the only person who is stressed, who feels sad, who feels lonely, who feels less than.’ Before I became turned on to the idea of self-help at the end of last year, it seems crazy to think that I just ambled through life completely unaware of the fact that I have thoughts and feelings and values and anxieties that can all be actively reflected upon and qu...

Aloneness. Independence. Me-time. Being in one’s own company. Whatever you want to call it. As the years go by in our technologically advanced world, it is getting harder and harder to truly be by ourselves. And the thought of being by ourselves is something that actually scares the living daylights out of us too. We avoid being on our own insofar as we can help it. Whatever it is we want or need to do, it seems imperative for many of us that we be accompanied while doing so. Going to the bathroom on a night out, seeing a film, attending a match, going for a walk, holidaying. We would rather not do any of these things if it means going alone, and, rather worryingly, that includes the one about the toilet. And then, those times that we are by ourselves, in a waiting room, or on public transport, or when we get a few minutes of a break throughout the working day, we immediately gravitate towards our phones. We need to be scrolling, texting, checking notifications, consuming information i...

2020 isn’t over yet so I feel dissuaded from saying anything definite and final about it. The universe still has 4 weeks to Punk us before calling it a day. But if there is anything at all I can say about this year, it is that, so far, it has been a teacher, and a harsh mistress at that. Among the many lessons in which it schooled me, probably the biggest and most important one was in regards to control: having control, not having control, the anxiety linked to things being outside my control, and basically how to manage it all before I am eaten alive. From a young age, I relished the feeling being in control gave me. I am the eldest of four, so usually for my brother and sisters it was my way or the proverbial highway. I was in charge, I picked the games we played, I determined how long we would engage in each activity before I decided I was bored and we were all going to do something different instead, I wrote the Santa letters because my younger siblings’ spelling and grammar were n...