Career Confidence

9I Cannot Control the Weather

I cannot control the weather; neither can you. We spend so much time worrying about things we cannot control. Anxiety levels and depression have skyrocketed in recent years. Mental health is a topic that has become so mainstream, most people are out there talking about their issues, situations, things that scare them, problems they have, and how they feel about it so much that it has become the proverbial watercooler conversation.

And I think that is a good thing.

I did not plan on writing a chapter about mental health in this book, but in my company, it is a topic we chat about regularly. I don't want to give you the wrong impression. I am not running around all day asking my team if they are depressed. But, if I see someone who is normally pretty happy and bubbly having an off day, I will ask, “Is everything okay?”

Sometimes they respond that they are perfectly fine. Sometimes the problem spills out of them like a rainspout. I listen. They talk. I can provide advice or guidance or support, but I am not a therapist. My advice tends to be motherly, and sometime that does the trick.

Everyone needs someone to listen to them. Whether it is at home or at work or at school, the best thing we can do as friends, employers, and peers is to listen.

I personally had terrible anxiety in my twenties and thirties, and that was a time when the world did not seem to be falling apart.

In this day and age, as the world has turned into a dumpster fire of crap, I ...