Breakdown... is it always a bad?

I have a bad habit. Well, many, actually. This one in particular is scrolling more than I ‘should’…

Whilst scrolling, I see many quotes and memes. Using social media as a form of moving wallpaper means that despite things passing in front of my eyes, I don’t always see much. However, last week something landed, captured some thoughts and it’s been niggling away gently:

"breakdown is breakthrough"

I don’t know if that is exactly what was written, but it is what is remembered. And I have no idea who posted it, nor where they got it from. I chucked it into a search engine and there is no such quote - I don’t think I am missing an attribution, let’s get stuck in.

Firstly, how am I interpreting ‘breakdown’? An enforced, unplanned, sudden stop in normal daily activities.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a few over the years. I’ve recently experienced a mini version, having picked up a Spring lurgy which wouldn’t go away until I stopped. Properly.

The reason why that meme has burrowed under my skin a little is because it coincided with the mini breakdown, and it has prompted thought. There is a pattern.

Each time there have been hints about the need to slow down. If I don’t heed them, the inconvenience gets greater, like that time I eventually got floored by pneumonia, which required five months of recovery time. It’s got me wondering, is breakdown another version of whispers (the coincidental hints that crop up from overheard snippets of conversations, the car radio, random signs etc), where the whispers have had to resort to yelling?

But there’s an upside to these enforced stops. They create a negative space for something else.

All great art, architecture, storytelling and theatre requires negative space. I believe that the great art that is our lives, is no different. Take the day I began writing this article, noting ‘Hooray, I am better! And my creativity is like a fresh horse, very excited to be out – there is so much to do and see, and much bucking.’

It was a bit of a handful to be honest.. That day I began three articles, sketched notes on another five ideas, with a bit of brainstorming to get some of the other ideas out of my head and down on paper as bullet points. Ideas were pouring out of me faster than I could catch them.

Now it’s settled for a couple of weeks I can also see that my understanding of my business has gone up another gear too, I’ve gone up a level and the opportunities that are coming to me have shifted a little too – invitations to speak, and so on.

Every time I have had a major mini breakdown, something new has happened. Twenty years ago, I stubbed my little toe and broke it. A few months later there was a car crash (whiplash injuries). Both resulted in trips to hospital, x-rays and time unable to function normally. It was in the run up to a major life change. Perhaps you experienced something of this phenomenon in March 2020? For me, lockdown forced me to engage with the concept of online and digital businesses. In both instances, what happened after the enforced stop was a natural progression. If I’m being honest, what happened next should have happened before, I was just being very good at taking the path of perceived least resistance, maintaining the status quo, for the illusion of a quiet life.

Who was I kidding?!

In both cases, (all three if we include the pneumonia episode), the status quo was taking huge amounts of energy to maintain. I was much better off once I explored the new way that was foisted on me.

Which gets me to wondering, if stopping eventually becomes inevitable, perhaps the thing that we secretly wish for does too? Will it inevitably find a way of us doing it? If yes, that leaves us with two choices:

• do it ASAP; or
• get forced to stop, causing great inconvenience and potentially blowing up important parts of our lives, and then do it.

I don’t know, I’m just philosophising out loud here… maybe you’re philosophising now too, and coming up with different ideas?

And I am reminded once more of one of my favourite quotes from André Gide:

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

That’s the thing with being forced to stop, and then scrolling until something jumps out at me, and being a bit ADHD / systems thinkery, I do enjoy adding two to two. And then I add some more, and link them to other ones, like the role of purpose and capacity in our considerations of how and when we choose what we do.

If we only have limited time and energy, how do we deploy them to the best effect? What if we explore the secret dreams and wishes? What might happen then?

What do you think?