Hit the bottom to reach the sky

Martin researching his story

The self-discovery is a journey, not a goal. But you may think you achieved some milestone when you managed to push yourself against the bottom and jump towards the highs. That is how I felt recently—the bike crash, amongst many other challenges tested by resilience and integrity. I questioned my motivations and dreams. I said goodbye to colleagues who had to part ways with us as the world moved in an even more hectic direction, affecting everyone. Getting exposed to extreme stress, I decided to stop hiding from self-reflection and get the support of professionals. This way, I landed on the enormous NHS list for adult ADHD diagnosis.

The world has changed. It is the same as five years ago (five!!!): the globe stood still, and we were locked in our houses because of the pandemic; today, we sit on a planet shaken by the ongoing Russian invasion - that practically tore Europe apart. Trump questions what the US will do next regarding global safety, politics, and economics. DeepSeek is crashing the OpenAI and FAANG AI oligopoly. Labour is failing to revive the corpse of the UK economy after over a decade of Conservatives flogging that dead horse.

In a way, I stopped to care about the outside poop-storm. We, millennials, lived through the dotCom bubble, Y2K, 9/11, two decades of wars in the Middle East, two financial crises, a pandemic and 5 seconds to doomsday thanks to the psychopath Putin and the situation in place. I prefer not to name it (the biggest hypocrisy in history - they, of all nations, should have known better). All as we reached our 40ties.

All of that and our day-to-day stresses can break a person. Throw you on your knees and make you question your existence. I've been there. I'm back.

Now I just want to look forward. Adapt to the new reality. Keep the old identities and milestones behind and just live. I will focus on the best each day gives and compare myself only to yesterday. So yes, unfortunately, I'll put less energy into fixing the broken UK legal system and improving road safety. The current Metropolitan Police is useless, and the state seems to have more significant problems. I will virtue signal less about politics and blast on social media about my next diet - to be honest; I dropped the platforms some time ago except for rare for-family-and-friends posts and testing of the TikTok algorithm.

Instead, I took time to enjoy art and theatre. I just saw The Tempest with Sigourney Weaver, and I will soon see Brie Larsen in Electra and Tom Hiddleston with Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing. Ticket prices for Seagull with Cate Blanchet, Emmar Corrin and Tanya Reynolds were too extreme for me.

I bought a discontinued Indiana Jones Lego set, adding it to my micro-collection, the cinema mug, and Funko Pop. First and last with both Dr Jonses.

Finally, I slowly jumped into the revival of my creativity and employing AI in daily work and life. Building a droid with Raspberry PI and DeekSeek is still far on the backlog, but actual writing came to the top. By chance, I met with the Shut Up and Write Wimbledon crew and was touched by their spark. In the first instalment, I wrote a two-side reflection on my bike crash, which went surprisingly well (I may publish it at some point here). On the second, I learned that if I don't write my emotions at the moment, I won't be able to replay them - therefore, put them into words.

When speaking with my therapist, I mentioned drawing as a thing I loved but stopped doing years ago; she pointed out how I lit up while saying that. That was a final signal to move on after reducing my anxiety and depression levels from severe to non-existent. I can't work out the next business idea. I know I need and love to create. Draw, write.

That led to brainstorming with Martin—his stories and, possibly, my stories based on our brainstorming. More will come later, but you may follow him on TikTok, Instagram or Facebook.