Yesterday will always be remembered as the day Joe Biden was inaugurated as President. And as the day my garden flooded. But one might argue that this of secondary importance, at least from a macro perspective.

It’s hard to concentrate when your garden is flooding because it falls into the ‘not quite a crisis’ category. The sort of situation that won’t necessitate an emergency visit from the drainage repair firm, water company or council, but that might induce one or all of them to come round in the next week or so. The sort of situation that could lead you to go and buy some sandbags as a precaution, but equally, could lead you to not bother because it’ll probably all work itself out. Probably.

It’s hard to concentrate because you’re supposed to carry on. ‘Keep calm and carry on’ – that’s what the novelty mug says. Or is it ‘Keep calm and drink tea’?

Either way, if your house is flooding, you stop what you’re doing and you act. If it’s your garden, you can’t quite justify sticking your out of office on and letting your boss know that any further work is impossible under the circumstances. It’s a mental health grey area. Not stressed enough to call in sick, but stressed enough to be stressed. So you go and make a cup of tea…

I hope that over the next decade further progress is made to help guide people towards better mental health choices. We can’t arrive at a future in which everyone downs tools as soon as the first pang of worry hits them, because it’ll end up rendering our species utterly useless. Instead, it’s about knowing when it’s better to stop than to carry on carrying on. And we are already utterly useless at making this sort of decision. It’s why tech firms and health practitioners are developing AI-powered self-assessment apps and chatbots for us to consult, creating streamlined tools for remotely accessing professional expertise, providing bite-size mindfulness sessions and guided lunchbreak meditations.

I’m trying not to be cynical. I do think that help is needed, even if the majority of these folks turn out just to be in it for the money.

Earlier this week I listened to a podcast about ‘selling with noble purpose’. And that’s a bit lofty, but the general sentiment is hard to argue with. Your business doesn’t need to change the world, but it does need to offer something that genuinely improves its buyers’ lives. A tech company with an app that improves our self-awareness of emerging or ongoing mental health concerns might well be entitled to charge a small fee in return for its efforts. And indeed, it’s the sort of thing I might be tempted to buy. Or perhaps I should just spend my money on a water pump.

Photo by Rish Agarwal on Unsplash.