The Text That Changed Everything

My thumb does its usual instinctive swipe, swipe, pause, swipe. My face is lit up like the moon in my dark bedroom. I lay on my front, legs stretched out behind me, propped up on my elbows. My body hurts, but I stay there anyway, too distracted to care.

I watch self-help stuff, mainly. Videos where people tell me they’ve discovered the secret to happiness, or fulfilment, or purpose, and that if I just watch till the end, then I’ll know the secret too. I fall for it every time. And when the secret is revealed, I file it away in my mental to-do list, and then my thumb jerks, and I’m onto the next video.

I’ll be the first to admit that the to-do list never gets completed. When I finally throw my phone face down on the pillow, I feel strange. I look around my room and realise that I’m alone.

I worked from home for six years. When I started the job - a fancy Higher Education job that I was eternally grateful for - it was lockdown. Many of us were working from home. Do you remember it? Strange times. But as lockdown began to ease and people matriculated back to office life, I stayed at home. The organisation I worked for never returned to the office again. And as the years passed, something odd began to happen. 

It wasn't noticeable at first; I turned down an invitation here and there, and started getting all my shopping (groceries, clothes, loo roll, you name it) online. I started scrolling social media more, finding comfort in other people’s lives. And I watched TV almost religiously every evening. I woke in the morning, rolled into my office and stared at my laptop screen for 8 hours. Then I rolled into the living room and stared at the TV screen for three hours. Then I rolled into bed and stared at my phone screen until I was too tired not to sleep. 

I started wondering what the point of life was. Why are we here? What happens when we die? What even is “reality” anyway? Perhaps these are just normal, curious human questions. But the more I thought about it, the more my grip on reality began to slip. What I saw on my phone screen didn’t look like what I saw in my own life. It was all pristine houses, kitchen islands and perfectly kempt nails. My life was more like clutter, unemptied dishwashers and overflowing bins.

Reel after reel, post after post, reality was getting further and further from me. I became miserable at work and miserable outside of it. So when my workplace announced a voluntary severance scheme, I applied. I was lonely, far more depleted than I realised. And so I left. 

Burnout, fatigue, and an intense emotional reaction to the reality that I had left a job that I once thought would be my forever career led to a halting of almost everything in my life. I withdrew from everything and spent the vast majority of my time in bed, hiding from the world under my duvet, still scrolling, as if the answers were buried in the glass of my iPhone screen.

I grieved, I think. I grieved the loss of the girl I used to be. The free-spirited teen. The fun friend. The adventurous one. But what was I now? Sad, no social skills, and a fear of leaving the house. The months rolled by, and still my screens did not give me an answer. The depression was real, deep, and seemingly infinite.

But one night while I lay in bed looking at my phone and contemplating existence, I got a text.

“Want to come dance with me tonight? Beginners class.”

My thumbs stood to attention, preparing to type back a resounding “no” before returning to my precious doom scroll. But something stopped me. Maybe it was the months of scrolling, the existential dread, or the innate meaninglessness that had washed over me. But I figured, what have I got to lose? And so I went to dance class with my mum. And it felt… good. And so I went back the following week. And that felt good too. And so I kept going. And then I got curious. What else could make me feel good like the dance class could? 

And so I went swimming, and that felt good. And then I went to a kickboxing class, and that felt good. And then I started taking my dog to gundog training. And then I started painting and writing and gardening and singing and cooking meals for my family. And then I started applying for jobs and going to interviews in huge organisations. And I performed well in the interviews. And then I did some consultancy work. And then I got offered two jobs. And then… somewhere along the way, I was okay again. I felt good again. 

Looking back, I can see where I went wrong. The screens, the working from home, the TV, the social media, the algorithms, the sycophantic AI chatbots. I was inundated with them all. And it wasn't until I started doing human things - moving my body, socialising, finding communities, telling stories, helping people - that I began to feel better. All of my hobbies had one thing in common: you didn't need a mobile phone to do them. In fact, they actively reduced the amount of time I was on my phone. 

So, where am I going with all of this? Well, I started writing to try and make sense of all of this. And somewhere along the way, it became something that I wanted to share. 

I hope this post (and all of those that come after) can be your dance class moment. Your own personal catalyst for embodiment, community, and flourishing. 

If you’ve ever felt a sense of distance between yourself and the full human experience, then know that you are not alone. We will find the answers, together.