I loved this article. Thank you for sharing it.

I felt it put words to an experience I wrote about learning to "play" the piano: https://jondlm.github.io/website/blog/the_joy_of_discovery/

Cheers to all of you out there trying to slow down.

The topic of this article felt familiar to me. It's similar to ideas in IFS: internal family systems. IFS also uses control systems to describe our internal landscape.

If the concept of multiplicity (we humans being a system of smaller systems) resonates with you, consider reading No Bad Parts by Richard C. Schwartz. I've personally found it immensely helpful.

Ive heard about this and also some newer works based partially on IFS. Looks very interesting

Hey Noj! Thanks! I certainly am getting some good rest. Things aren't as bleak as they may appear from my article.

It wasn't.

It's the painful truth of how I felt. I'm not saying it's good. In fact, it's _very bad_.

Thank you for the kind comment :)

I completely agree. I didn't talk about it in the post but I have done a lot of therapy over the last couple years. I'm painfully aware of the ways I've projected my past pain onto my present.

My attempt with the article was to simply reflect how things have felt and leave analysis largely absent. I realize it's left folks with a lot of questions and rightly worried about me.

I'm in a much better place now.

Thank you for taking the time to write this comment.

Thank you for the kind words!

Thankfully I'm not ground down to a nub. I've found a lot of support over the last few years outside of work.

My boss shared first and was very much clear about it being optional.

People bring a lot of context into these conversations and make a lot of assumptions. There is a lot of nuance here and that's tough to sit with.

Even if it was indeed fully optional and nobody felt the obligation to share even though they didn't want to (which I find hard to believe), you have to consider that you're also imposing on the people who are listening. They didn't sign up for group therapy either and sitting through accounts of potentially tragic events might be an unnecessary emotional stressor for them (e.g. maybe they were also recently divorced or lost someone to an illness), especially if they're expected to go back to work and be productive afterwards.

Your red flags are absolutely merited. I won't deny that.

Sorry to hear you've been burned by sharing.