You're not crazy, you're coping
"Listen — are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?"
A new-to-me friend asked, am I crazy?
She was navigating the Block firings. Offered a raise and invited to stay, she said she didn’t want to join her colleagues who were screaming bloody murder on internal Slack channels, because that wasn’t going to help the situation.
You’re not crazy, you’re coping, I told her.
So many of us are. Young adults who couldn’t step into a career after college. Workers told to use AI or else. People who wished for the raise could have kept a colleague instead.
It feels more than a little crazy to be introducing a book into this context. When most of us are so overwhelmed that we can’t take in anything new. …But this moment of challenge is exactly why I wrote it.
It’s called Our Best Work.
It’s about the invisible norms that make work feel crazy — and what happens when you can finally see them. Not fixing individuals. Shifting context. Not alone, but together.
Caring about work right now can feel like setting yourself up for a world of hurt. But deciding NOT to care, wanting numbness… it costs us more. The antidote isn’t more advice — it’s aliveness. And that aliveness? It’s not only possible, but waiting for us. Through what we can create together.
The book is out now wherever books are sold. I recorded it myself, if you’re an Audible person
And thank you. Some of the stories are ones first shared/discussed here on this Substack when Paul Smalera was my editor.