Andy Johns

At least 50% to 60% of tech employees who have been in the saddle, so to speak, for a minimum of five to seven years, they're experiencing some form of psychological and emotional distress. It may be minor enough such that they think it's just day-to-day anxiety, but it's often much more significant than people realize because it creeps up on you slowly and then all of a sudden it hits you quickly.

These adaptations, if you're unaware of them and if you're unaware of the subconscious drivers that are responsible for them, they run the risk that they go too far, and that these adaptations, which were initially beneficial to you and to your life, they reverse course in a sense, and they become detrimental to your present state and your future development.

At the end of the day, the seeking of the truth involves the seeking of a deep sense of self-understanding, and if you can get into the daily practice of being able to sit down with pen and paper and write to yourself, to ask yourself questions, to really sit there and evaluate the thoughts that are running through your head, it is possible for somebody to reach some state of bliss or enlightenment or some real spiritual awakening entirely on their own with just pen and paper and a quiet room.

If your sleep always sucks, if your relationships are constantly strained or frequently strained, if your physical health is failing, there's so many ways that that can be measured. So there's really no excuse for that to say, 'Oh, I just didn't know.' When those are suffering or when they're really out of whack, it's undeniable that there is something that is detrimental to your wellbeing that's going on right now, and your body is telling you, 'Stop. Something needs to change.'

I learned very early on that if I wanted to feel good, I needed to achieve, and that if I wanted to love myself and be considered lovable by others, I needed to achieve. That pulled me out of a darkness that I was in for several years as a kid, and I'm glad that it did, and it led to an excellent experience in high school, in college, and then well into my 20s, but eventually, those emotional wounds are going to come to the surface.