Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: The Cost Of Community

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Hello EIC heads, happy Wednesday, happy September, and happy Everything In Conversation day...Earlier this month Niamh Duffy wrote a Substack titled, ‘I’ve protected my peace so much, I’ve accidentally made myself boring.’She writes, ‘I’ve been so busy safeguarding my mental health and pruning my life of stress that I seem to have pruned myself of… fun. I’m not even sure I remember how to have it anymore. Not the kind of fun that comes with bubble baths and to-do lists and reading about attachment styles, but the messy, impulsive, human sort that happens at 2am over chips and existential conversations with someone you met that evening.’In it she details how in the pursuit of self care, boundaries and rest, she has lost a vital part of herself, her sense of spontaneity, community and perhaps, humanity? We seem to value right now, above all else, performance, productivity and ‘health’, but at what cost?Thank you so much for all of your thoughts and takes on this topic, we love being in conversation with you all! O,R,B xxxI’ve protected my peace so much, I’ve accidentally made myself boring. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Bracera and I'm Anoni and this is Everything in Conversation. The first of our two weekly servings of content, discourse, pop culture analysis and more. Also, we are currently in the running for a nomination in the listeners choice category for the British podcast awards and we would love your vote to help us get there. We know so many of you have already voted and to each and every one of you, thank you so much. If you haven't already, there's still time. We'll leave a link in the show notes, or you can click the link in our Instagram bio. You just have to search our name, everything is content. Put your email address in and then click confirm in the email that they send over.

Thank you. Earlier this month, Neve Duffy wrote a substack titled, I protected my piece so much, I've accidentally made myself boring. She writes, I've been so busy safeguarding my mental health and pruning my life of dress that I seem to have pruned myself of fun. I'm not even sure I remember how to have it anymore. Not the kind of fun that comes with bubble baths and to-do lists and reading about attachment styles, but the messy, impulsive human sort that happens at 2am over chips and existential conversations with someone you met that evening. In the piece, which is so fantastic

you need to read it. We will link it in the show notes. She details how in the pursuit of self-care, boundaries and rest, she's lost a vital part of herself. her sense of spontaneity, community, and perhaps even humanity. We seem to value right now above all else, performance, productivity and health in inverted commas, but at what cost? What did you both make of the piece and did it ring true for you? I thought it was such a lovely piece, really thoughtful. It's exactly the kind of stuff that I really enjoy reading on substack. It's this like introspective writing, really honest, focused on like self-improvement, but not in the way that you'd think. It's not like self-actualization and

perfection. It's just like, I've noticed this about myself and I wonder what it means. I wonder if I could live differently. And it also made me check in on my own relationship to fun, which I think is a really valuable thing that we should all be doing, especially maybe as I'm in denial about this, but the summer feels like it's wrapping up. That cozy season beckons. I kind of don't want to lose. The fun that I've been having, or at least like the access to my friends, the energy, I thought it was really nice. I think I was quite surprised when I got to the bit where she says, and I'm 25, I'm about to turn 26. I was like, oh, this is actually, this is something I'm relating to quite recently. And I'm like, how do I sort of re-inject fun into my life after turning

30, moving out of London? And I thought, this actually feels very early. So very wise that she has picked up on the fact that things are shuddering a bit of her way prematurely. but I did wonder then oh is this really is this something going on like generationally because that is 25 to 26 I was like I am actually I feel like I have never known better how to have a good time so that gave me a little bit of pause and made me a little bit worried yeah that's that's so interesting because that is similar to my experience of reading it where it feels like a thought and a feeling and a reflection that I've been having a lot recently and I remember bringing this up a few weeks ago. that there's that meme which is the cost of community is inconvenience and I remember seeing it and feeling personally atted by that meme going round because I just felt like it it kind of summed up how I maybe was falling into the camp of making my life convenient I don't know if convenient is the right word but basically making it smaller and smaller and smaller and after going to prima vera this year I just almost felt like knocked on the head to just

just remember that all the best times happen when you're sometimes a little bit tired, a little bit kind of groggy from having had an hour less sleep because you've stayed up chatting to friends or your, you know, your legs are just exhausted from having walked so much across a festival to see all the, you know, the best acts that you've ever seen in your life and it's all that kind of stuff. And I think before then I'd kind of shrunk my life because work was quite stressful at the time. So I was making, myself more adaptable to work rather than making work smaller in my life and my life bigger to encompass everything else that makes it more special and interesting and active and alive.

So reading this piece definitely felt like it came at the right time for something I've been thinking about already. And I completely agree with you. I was really surprised by the age. It makes me sad. I wonder if you're right. There's something happening. across ages and this moment specifically that targets everyone rather than people our age who are in their early 30s who are getting older and moving away from each other geographically or maybe lifewise, you know, getting into long-term relationships. I wonder if it's beyond that. I wonder if it is the time we're living in post-COVID, something about the style of working,

maybe something about the cost of living as well. I wonder if it's much bigger than age. What about you and only? Totally agree on the age thing because I think I can relate to this piece so much. And I do actually check in with myself sometimes because, I mean, I am training for a marathon. So that's obviously massively impacting what I'm doing day to day because I just have to be really focused on that. But I do worry about myself sometimes. I'm like, God, have I kind of swapped out what I used to see as fun with sort of like hyper-productivity, performance, stuff that I would never really relate to as being something.

about my character before but I do think it is a product of my age like you say one of my best friends just had a baby lots of people are getting engaged getting married moving in together there isn't that room to message someone on a Tuesday at four o'clock being like it's quite sunny do you think we should just go to the pub like that doesn't really happen anymore whereas honestly that was my life up until I was about 29 30.5 between you know what I mean like we really were out there and now it's it's it's the training for things but it's also, I do find that a hangover just absolutely kills me. But what I've been doing recently that I've realized is quite funny is I've been not

drinking because I'm being more social because I'm like, I'm not having any alcohol. So I can actually go and socialise like every night you can't. Just going to bed an hour later than normal as a 31 year old is the same as having six points a bit. Like I wake up and I'm like, oh, I've got a hangover. That's great. So it's funny because I felt a bit added by the piece because I do worry.

But I think this is a kind of a global issue like you said, about the discomfort is the price we pay for community. I think that more and more we are seeing after this idea of like the joy of missing out and actually it's okay to stay in. I noticed myself feeling much more comfortable of being flaky. You know, when people post a screenshot and someone's like, actually, I don't think I'm going to make it tonight. And they're like, yay.

I think that there is going to be payoffs later down the line when we're maybe like in our 50s and 60s and really need those group of friends that we slowly let disintegrate in our 20s and 30s. And I think that there is like a social code that we, we've again let kind of break down a little bit about when we need to show up, when we need to make an effort, when it's important to put aside the fact that actually you've got your own shit going on and you need to be there. So this touches on like a few different things for me, but my excuses that I've been telling myself, because I do worry about this sometimes

in relation to myself, I do worry that maybe I'm living too individualistically or making choices that aren't as like good in verticomers as they could be. But yeah, I'm training for a marathon and I'm old. So that's my excuse. We had a message from Amelia, which I think is sort of on this social code, but also like what we owe to ourselves and other people. And she said, let's get indebted to each other. We need community. And I think it's the self-imposed isolation, masquerading as peace, masquerading as control. I mean, it is control, actually. It's not even masquerading as sort of regulation. And my life is well managed and it's well balanced, but I don't think

it is balanced because it's completely lacking one thing, which is like fun and a bit of chaos and time out and, oh, time out with people and the lack of control that happens when you go, oh, well, I can say yes to that. It's not in the plan. It might fuck up my meal prep or it might be slightly, I might be slightly tired at work tomorrow or my workout might be shorter. My overnight oats might not get to sit as long in the fridge. I think it's that self, it's just not, it's not cute. It looks cute. It looks cute on Instagram and it looks cute in theory. Like everything is all organized. My ice cubes are really aesthetic, but I think it will hamstring any person down the line. When life does get gnarly and twisty and you fall to your knees, as happens to all of us, and you think, why are they not people here? You know, because when you're young, you're able to lean into time with other people, you can give and you can receive and you can kind of learn that language of asking for help. And I think if you don't do that, if you stay inside in your formative years,

you don't learn that, you don't build a community. And I think you can talk all you like about protecting your peace now. But actually you're putting your future piece. I think that's what you're saying. And only you're putting your future piece in jeopardy by not building like a safe and loving group around you by not learning the language of like asking for help and also of having fun because when life does get gnarly and twisty, one thing you can rely on is like the escapism of having fun, whether that is going out and dancing or whether it's just having a silly evening, feeling childlike again. I think that is peace with a greater payoff. It's not momentary peace. It's just like something you can rely on again and again. It's what I'm finding

now when I'm like, do you know what I really need to do? I need to be silly. I need when the walls are sort of closing in, I need to be like, I know exactly what to do. I know where to go. I know who to ask. I know how to be silly. And then you come back and you can be an adult and you can actually like protect your piece more maturely. But I just think it's a, it's an art. It's a skill we're losing. And yeah, I just love Amelia's message. I'm kind of like playing in my mind like let's get indebted to each other. I think it was so beautiful. Yeah, I agree with all of that. It's such a good, such a lovely thing. They have to be indebted to each other. We also had a message from Charlotte that said, my work hours make me scared of evening weekend plans, but I never regret doing them. And I think in a modern

society, this is also part of the problem. I was talking to someone about it the other day is work just never ends, even if your job is nine to five, the fact that you have your emails on your phone, the fact that you're aware of what's going on, the fact that people can contact you mean that those work hours bleed into every other hour of the day. And I do think that we feel like we have less time. And this whole idea of like the five to nine before the nine to five, like I do go out early sometimes and I do like it. But I do think that's really depressing that people are trying to fit in like a whole other life before they start their working day because we do just feel so squeezed. And I do think that is a slightly more modern phenomenon and why we are

seeing like burn out so much more significantly. Just because we really can't get a break because of having access constantly to our work worlds. And also a lot of people have mentioned like the cost of living crisis and feeling like we can't necessarily afford to do things. I think it's like we're all searching and reaching for what's going to make us feel the most. well and well adjusted in a sick society and currently the trend is towards being the fittest you can be eating really well getting loads of sleep and those fundamentals there's also that really silly meme you know it's like when you got older and you realise that oh drinking water and moving your body and getting a good night's sleep actually does really help in all areas that is true but it only

helps as well with a foundation of community a bit of spontaneous fun the ability to let yourself just go actually it doesn't matter if I go to bed a bit late tonight, even though I'm going to feel tired in the morning. Those things do need to coexist with each other. And I think we've really overcorrected. Because if you think back to when, even when I first started uni, people going to the gym was not normal. Everyone would sign up to the hall's gym at the beginning of uni, because it was really cheap. No one would go ever. And now younger and younger people are kind of like exercising really regularly. They've got skincare routines. They're doing things that we would never have done when we were younger. And I think that is a product of being in an environment where I

everything is about productivity. It's about work. It's about squeezing the best juice out of every area in your life. And for some reason, what's fallen by the wayside is that holistic wellness aspect of getting a bit drunk with your friends, going to bed a bit late, kissing someone, whatever it might be. And yeah, I think that that really plays into it. And I think a lot of people are really stressed and too worried and too anxious to let their hair down as it were in case it might have follow-on implications. But that's too strict and too sad to be living by those rules constantly. And it does make me sad to hear that younger people especially are already feeling that pressure.

Yeah, I think the working hours thing is something that I definitely have experienced. I don't know about other people and I'd be really interested to hear this because I haven't really had a survey among my friends about it either. but I have never done nine to five. It's always been eight to five, half nine to six, nine to six. So it's, it's always been a longer than eight hour working day. Wherever I've worked, I've never, never experienced the nine to five, which is kind of crazy. And especially recently, the pivot to doing more days in an office has been really impactful because it takes me, it takes by about an hour to get to an office. Like you said, I have started incorporating just like exercise into my life, which has been amazing and really helps me. So then to like fit your life in around three or

maybe four days in an office, depending on who you are because I know people now are going up to four and five even. And to make meals so you don't have to spend a fortune on food to just kind of like live your life, see your friends, to then also watch the latest pop culture because that's important to an enriching life too in my opinion and then do your work and then just come back home it's like the maths don't add up and to do your laundry of course and to just like live a life where your home is clean because that's important if you can find the time to do it it's just all of this stuff it doesn't compute I don't understand how anyone makes it work unless then on the weekends you stay in and you don't do anything then it's just it's it's really difficult so it's

no wonder that some part of your life has to shrink to make all of that balance work and it just it doesn't feel fair or right that work is the thing that has to take up the most room it's the elephant in the i don't know the flat share and everything else has to kind of like bend over shrink in comparison contort itself to fit but that is the scenario that i feel like a lot of people find themselves in right now so when you pointed that out i was just mentally nodding my head because I think that is a huge factor in all of it. And sadly, I don't think anything is going to change. It feels like, it feels like post-COVID.

We did have this really amazing reflection on work-life balance and working from home and the importance of how that can really supplement a good relationship to working life. And it feels like all of that has just been ironed out so quickly this year. And I, A, don't understand why I think it's stupid personally. I know it's a really divisive topic, but I think not working from home is stupid if workplaces can allow for it. And then B, I think the impact is this issue is only going to get worse because it is really hard to balance all of these things, especially as you get older and people, as you

say, have kids, they move to different cities. It becomes harder financially to see them because trains of fortune because you have less money to go for dinner or to do those activities that don't require just having somebody come over which takes time. It's just so many different factors, but I think work is such a huge component of it. I think it is what, when you read out Charlotte's message about, like going out, you never regret it. It's taking that little leap in that point of like, oh, which way modern man, like the devil and the angel on your shoulder of like, should I go out? Should I stay in? And I think we've got muddled which one is the devil and which one is the angel. We had another message from Hazel who said,

She kind of spoke to that question of why, why this feeling of guilt almost and, well, I shouldn't. And she wrote, do we feel like we aren't allowed to have fun, always hustling for something? And I think this is what I find fascinating. I think there is a very modern shame in excess or frivolity that just kicks in so much sooner. It was understood that even I think in a workplace that the younger employees, there would be some going out, some fraternising. it's what you do in your early 20s, maybe your later 20s. You do that up until the point where you can't do that for other reasons. Maybe you've got a family.

Maybe you leave the city where you were studying and got that job. Maybe move out to the suburbs. It's just less doable. Or you do it so much. You think, I've sort of kicked the ass out of this. I feel really satiated. My tastes have changed. And I don't know where it's coming from this like premature hanging up of like dancing shoes

and putting down. the shot glass or whatever it is. I think maybe, I thought maybe for us and maybe for Gen Zs who were older Gen Zs, so just a few years younger than us, it's like we are a part of that generation that have been time and time again accused of like needless frivolity and blamed for our own economic circumstances. Like we've all spaffed our fictional house deposits on like eggs Benedict and courtados. There is like a shame woven in that I don't think there was for older generations who could have their courtados and a house too and it's like something about the quote unquote needless spending of on a night out or

spontaneous trip or throwing a party or whatever it is I think we're flinching at it we have so little materially that it almost feels impossible to justify and also to believe that other people would find it justified I think which maybe we'll talk about in a moment, like the social media surveillance, that's kind of lateral checking around, like, am I being judged? Am I doing something wrong? Should I only be living in like the most noble way? Which I think at the moment is aesthetic life on the internet, saving for a house, living well, living clean, living quite beautifully. And it's a shame, I think, because it also makes like natural enemies of people within the same generation. We're all just tempter checking

and second guessing, am I living wrong? Are they living wrong? we need to be at the club looking for someone to snog or at least like in a coffee shop in a bar out in the world not worrying about that because that I think is a way that it just eats years of your life and there are a lot of things about my 20s I'm like who what was I up to then but the pursuit of fun not even I don't think I went in a club between the ages of like 25 29 but I was I was having fun there was a spirit of yes I wasn't thinking okay this is a fiver that needs to to go in the house deposit. This is money I'm not allowed to touch. This is a bit of freedom that I should not enjoy to its fullest because there's something else in my future that will

suffer. And I feel like a more well-rounded person as a result. It was as important, I think, as everything that I did during puberty, which at the time maybe didn't make sense, but I was becoming this person. And I do think there's something in the way that we're surveilling each other the way that we are just looking over our shoulders and to either side to be like, well, they're living this way. I probably should do the same that maybe we just weren't exposed to in our early 20s because we were all on Facebook. Oh my God, the spirit of yes was so strongly in my body. Like, it did actually have to get exercise out because it was a bit too, like, it was too prevalent. But everything you're saying makes sense. It's something I think

about all the time in terms of that idea of like the nobility of the way that we live. And making sure that people know that we're not doing anything that's extra or anything that's superfluous to our needs. And I feel this so strongly. I know this is like a catch phase now and I do have loads of drafts, but I started writing a substack about this, but basically about this idea that if something isn't work, I feel so guilty all the time. Even if it's that on the weekend, like I constantly feel like I should be doing work. I can't feel like I have to be explaining. I find it very hard to have a hobby now and not try and figure out a way to make that make me money. I don't know if that's unique to people that are like freelancing. I really don't

think it is anymore. I think that a lot of people are getting that pressure. But I feel this like inability to separate my worth from my success in verticomers, but specifically tied into my career. And I was actually talking about this last night. I was like, I need to find a way to bring away my identity, my success, the things I've achieved away from like success. Yeah, success in that way. And I think that that's a massive struggle and also the cost of living crisis. We spoke about this before, but this idea that no one's having dinner parties anymore

because no one has a house and one of my friends has bought a house because she's moved out of London and we all went there and we were like, this is so cool to be able to fit everyone in one room. But that doesn't exist anymore. So I think we've got lots of very good reasons as to why we're struggling to keep up at the same rate

of like hanging out with people, having fun, doing those things. At the same time, we had a really good message from Anna, which I think is quite a good reality track, because I do think this is true. And she said, absolutely everything is habit. Socialising in some form is good for everyone. When you allow yourself to rot and lose all habit of socialising, it becomes harder to back out and reinforces the belief that you're too tired or lacking in social battery. In the same way, when you're someone that doesn't

exercise and look to people that do and wonder how they find the motivation, they don't. Most of the time, it's a habit they've formed and so comes from instinct versus effort. I think people find it easier to put themselves in a category of person rather than do the hard thing of forming healthy habits and then she puts in brackets it's me I'm people but I also think that's a really good point I think the more that you pull away from something which I have said like I actually know I've got better recently but pulling away from saying yes things being like actually no I'm going to be really tired I get really worried about being tired now it's not something I ever used to think but I'm like oh god I'll be really tired tomorrow if I do that I've tried to stop doing that but yeah it is just a habit

some of my friends are extremely social or like the exercise is a really good point from her as well because I do find it very easy to get up and go for a run it is just like I don't think about it's just something that I do now so I do think that's a really good point about let's take the thing from hustle culture aka like habit stacking and creating good habits and apply that to socialising I think that's quite a good way of framing it that's kind of a hilarious um you turn and I guess like weaponisation of yeah regimented structured lifestyle just imagine if you turned it over to more abstract incredible things like protest activism community imagine if you just regimented going to a protest or i don't know just like community activity like mutual

aid groups that would be that would be quite fun um i completely agree with everything you said and i also i also get so preemptively worried about being tired what what is that it's so strange i the day before a flight, if it's an early flight, I will get like the knots of anxiety in my stomach preempting how bad it will feel to be tired the next day. To the point that I've just actively ruined the day before. And every time you do get out for the flight, maybe not every time, maybe like seven out of ten times for me, it's never as bad as I think it will be. Just because you're doing it, you're just getting on with it. But the preempting of it is so much worse. I don't know what to do with that. That is, yeah, that's something I need to figure

out. One thing I've found as well with my friends who are kind of late 20s, early 30s, loads of people have started adopting like group activities or hobbies. Like, I have a book club with lots of my school friends, which is really, really lovely. And I know people do like football and I don't know netball or like group sports as well or go on like running clubs, which sounds like it's, It's a really amazing way to meet people. So I think if you aren't somebody who likes drinking or going out and you are worried about the physical toll, there are so many different avenues.

And it's been so amazing to observe the different avenues that people around me have taken because I just had no idea that they were interested, particularly in whether that's football or like knitting clubs or something, for example. So, yeah, that's been really interesting. And I do think that is an active combating of some of the things we're saying, which is maybe not having to be super tired during a work week,

but also finding that you can fill your cup in really interesting ways, in ways that particularly peak your interest, for example. So I haven't, apart from my book club, I don't really have anything else. But I do think, and this is something that I need to get better, I do think I need to do something that is purely community-based that just meets strangers, isn't with my own friends because before the pandemic, I had like a book club that was people I never knew. I turned up, I would get that kind of not of anxiety thinking, oh, is this going to be

really uncomfortable? What am I going to say today? Maybe I, you know, don't have much chit chat in me. And every time I would leave that book club, it was a book club that was, I think, centered on themes of chronic illness and was set up from somebody I did a panel talk about eating disorders years ago. so that was the only person I knew and sometimes she would be there sometimes she wouldn't and the theme was so interesting that you would get so many people with experiences of chronic illness and I would just always leave feeling so full so socially full so mentally full because the conversations we had were so amazing and also just feeling like life was so interesting because who knows what conversation I could have any day and that that was kind of amazing and I don't feel like I've had that regularly for a while. And I think you only really get that through putting yourself in these kind of difficult situations that you sail through. You find yourself able to navigate them, but you also meet so many people you would never ordinarily meet. So this conversation has reminded me of that. And it's also a good reminder that I should put myself in these

kind of difficult, uneasy situations to get that result. That's exactly it. There are no rules for how you should be having fun. That's just an extension of this. I've got to do things right mentality. You could, you can do picnics and like skinny dipping or Dungeons and dragons or like sober sex parties. You do not have to go to the club. You may go to the club. If you can find a club that's open and you want to go to the club, you can go to the club. But it's just about the doing and having fun and the willingness to try something. And I think it's it's again it's this it's a spirit of yes but it's it's understanding why you're saying yes and it is to fill your own cup up as she says in the piece i go to work come home scroll eat the same

three meals and then rest for what i'm always resting but never actually draining the battery and this is something a lot of the time i forget about balance it's multiple forces kind of acting on the core and as long as they're properly proportioned not too much of this not too little of this, you don't have to get it perfect. But as long as they're in some kind of proportion and you check in with your body and you feel like, okay, I have actually been out this much and I feel drained. For me, it's like if I drink too much coffee or if I stand under a light too long or if my routine slightly changes, I feel out of balance. And that's been the learning of my 20s to figure out how to maintain that. But once you get that down and you get that

down by experimenting, you sort of can. You're freer. You're like, okay, I'm going to go out. and I'm going to leave it this time. I'm going to go for this coffee with this friend and then I've committed to this later, but I'm going to tell them again, I'm a little bit tight, but I'm going to go. You do actually have to be draining the battery, otherwise you're going to be 80 years old,

and to show for it may just have, well, I did my skincare every single night, I really hit that retinal hard, or my class pass, I was really on it with that. And I think it is. It's a case of why do these things, if not for to expend them why save energy here if not to use it elsewhere and i did worry actually

when i left london that that was the end of fun i'd reached the end of my twenties which felt really seismic at the time now i feel like this is going to be the really fun decade i was away from everyone i was in like rural wales but instead actually like i know now when i'm offered an opportunity to do something it's an easy yes because i am spending time alone out here i have time to check in with my feelings. Nowadays, if I can go to something, I will be there. If there's even a hint of fun or seeing a friend or meeting someone new or getting an interesting story, I will see you there. I don't feel the pressure of my 20s to stay out till the bitter end to impress anyone. I go, I check in myself. I know I can leave when I want. It wasn't actually as click up

when I lived in London, I think because it was an abundance of stuff. The overwhelm kicks in. coming home and bedrotting essentially felt like I was offsetting all the stress. Now I don't have that problem. So it is, there is an element of privilege in that, but also I think I just see the wood for the trees. It is so bloody valuable. And also aside from that, I think the value of taking care of your friendships is also so, so high. Friendships do die when you're not having fun with people. It's like the currency of maintaining a friendship into your 20s, 30s, 40s, forever, which I would like to do, whether that's like a silly bit, a funny kind of conversation, that's fuel for friendships. And without saying yes and without inviting a bit of spontaneity,

without inviting people out and saying, come here with me. Or when they say, come here with me, you say yes. How do we expect that our friendships will last and deepen? There is an element, I think, of taking for granted that these things have just got infinite fuel to go on and on. No, we have to fuel and maintain them ourselves. And we do not do that. It's sticking separately. in our own house watching TikTok, I think that's not peace. It's giving up. And we did have a couple of messages about this. So Sarah said, I think this new phenomenon has made people way more flaky, which is a bad friend trait. I hugely agree with that. And Polly, who said, I found people can be very willing to flake or cancel plans now when they are made to, which is you are

being a bad friend. Protecting your peace. What are you protecting your peace for? I think peace is knowing your friends are taking care of. Your relationships are sound. And I think place that as high in the priorities as you possibly can. What you said about having those equal forces is so right. And this is such a weird thing, but it's quite silly. But you know how naturally everyone kind of gets a slump at like three o'clock? You start to feel tired. And naturally your inclination is to want to lie down and have a rest.

The best thing you can do in that moment is go out and go for a walk because it actually like helps with your blood glucose sugar levels, your energy levels. Sometimes when we think we want to rest, the thing that actually really helps us is movement. And I think that's like kind of applicable in other areas. when I start to feel like a bit of depression, my natural inclination is to want to go into myself and my friends will force me to go and hang out with them, like, take, be like, let's go for dinner or come round to my house. And it always gives me energy. So sometimes I think we assume that rest is the only way to get energy because it recharges us, but sometimes energy actually comes from

action. And I think it's really important to remember that, that sometimes the doing is the thing that's going to bring you up rather than the stopping. And going back to what you said about the flakiness, we had a message from Grant that said, I can't help but compare it to the individualistic, you don't owe anyone anything mentality, which I really fell foul of because I was such a people pleaser and it felt like such a relief to hear this kind of phrase and this idea because I was terrible for kind of overextending

in order to make people like me. But then I kind of did overcorrect and I was a bit flaky and I would be like, well, I'm not going to go. But the opposite of you don't owe anyone anything is no one owes you anything either. So when you're struggling or when something's going wrong, If you haven't, not that we should ever do anything with the idea of reciprocity from someone else, but I now love these friendships that I have with the women in my life where

we do owe each other a lot and we really fucking care. So someone's going through something and we'll be there. Something happens and we're celebrating it. Like there is, it's beautiful to feel responsible for someone else's happiness or sadness in some way. I think it really gives you a sense of humanity. It's lovely to know that when it's someone's birthday, they're going to get a gift from a group of people. There's something really special about having community which is built on this idea that someone goes to a breakup, we're going to get in someone's car, you're going to drop what you're doing. If someone gets engaged, we're going to be that. That is a really special, amazing thing. And yeah, it might mean that you might be a bit tired.

You might end up going out on a night when you've actually got a massive work thing to do the next day. But that is not, it ends up being a wonderful thing. You end up feeling so grateful for the exhaustion you feel from having like just given love to these other people and I think lastly on the rest thing because I'm guilty of this especially if my mental health isn't well isn't good rotting makes you more tired like that I cannot explain to you how much like just sitting by yourself going on a phone just exhausts you and so generally I'd say like even if it's just getting a coffee in and going for a walk or going to something local in your community and just chatting to someone. That will give you more energy, but I know that it feels like we have to

conserve our energy and rest, but I think it's gone too far. We got a message from Anon who said, I find this hard to read because I really resonate with this. I'm a teacher working London and went straight into the profession from university where I used to be reckless and fun. I think it's due to my anxiety and a need for control to make me feel safe that I stay in more than I ever have. Not necessarily insightful point, but just sharing my experience. Reading this adds to my negative self-talk and anxiety, though, lol. And I do, I think I see that very clearly. I think there is, it can feel like all is lost when you have kind of lost the habit of that. And I think I, I definitely relate to that kind of feeling like, oh, but what now? I don't have those skills. And I think I, I just really felt

for for this message who sort of like is trying to get everything right, is trying to go to work and now finds himself like, okay, but what do I do? We actually have what could be a near perfect replied to that from Leandro. He said, I agree 100% that the Jomo concept has gone too far the other way, particularly in a post-pandemic world. That said, I don't think all is lost. Like anything, social skills can fall out of practice and be used again. I'm optimistic that we're having these conversations about balancing our obligations to ourselves with those to our broader community. I think that is just chef's kiss. Thank you so much for listening this week and for all of

your thoughts on this week's topic. Quick reminder that we're on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content pod with extra behind the scenes content and ways for you to take part and suggest topics for upcoming episodes. If you enjoy Everything Is Content, please do leave us a rating and a lovely five-star review on your podcast app. It helps others find us and means we can hopefully keep making the show for a very, very long time. See you as always on Friday. Bye. I don't know.