this talk: is about the toxic drive for the ‘dream’ job at the detriment of mental health - with Hyphen
At the age of 16 I was sure of what I wanted. Go to a good university, get a high-paying job, wear fancy suits, impress all my friends and just generally be a capitalist wet dream. I’m 27 now and I’m a musician doing talks around my experiences with mental health at schools/corporates. I never wear a suit. Life rarely goes how you expect.
What changed?
Around 10 years ago I got first-hand experience of a phrase almost everyone is aware of now ‘mental health.’
A close friend of mine died by suicide when I was at university studying towards being that fancy-suit wearing guy I mentioned above.
Thinking at the time that Hugh Laurie in ‘House’ was a good model for how to deal with emotions, I in the most toxic of masculine ways pretended I was fine, drank lots of alcohol and soon after was working my ‘dream job’ at an investment bank.
It turns out not sleeping, being hung-over the majority of the time, not processing the death of a friend and working 16 hour days at a job you don’t like isn’t great for your mental health. Who knew.
I was feeling the same way my friend felt. I was depressed and I wanted it to stop.
Having that many conversations with death before I was 21impacted me in ways I’m still figuring out at the age of 27.
These experience taught me a few things. The first is that living your life to try impress people is really stupid. If you want to work in a fancy corporate job, do it because you love it, not because you think people will have some American-psycho type adoration of what you do. They won’t. Having been to more funerals than I ever thought I would before I turned 30, no one remembers the fact that you spent more time on excel than anyone else.
The second is that while the world is an awful, unforgiving place, there are reasons for optimism.
Despite those experiences, I’m now really happy. There are people who have been through much worse than me and are similarly found optimism. An inspiration of mine is a guy called Eddie Jaku. He was a holocaust survivor who lived until 99. Despite going through something I can’t even fathom, he survived and went on to live a happy fulfilled life and wrote a book called ‘the happiest man on earth’ (the Ted talk is great too and only 10 or so minutes). If that’s possible, then surely we all have reason to be hopeful.
Those conclusions led me to where I am now, spending time doing something I love (making music) and something I care about deeply (talking to people about how to improve their mental health, so they don’t feel like I did).
My latest song is called ‘Be Proud’ and it’s The story behind the song is my journey out of being depressed/suicidal. It's an upbeat song and I hope it provides some comfort for anyone who is struggling with those feelings. It's part of an EP called 'Smiles in a storm.' The EP covers a lot of how I feel now, vs how I felt then. I hope it's an optimistic reminder for people who have felt something similar.