The Heavy Bags We Pretend We’re Not Carrying

Sometimes the heaviest weight isn’t what’s in our hands — it’s the story in our heads.

The one that whispers we need more before we can start. A bigger car, a better shirt, a shinier tool. When, really, most of the time, we can do what we need with what we already have.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how silence is complicity. How can we build community on those foundations? How there’s no such thing as an “apolitical” business.

But here’s what I didn’t say: the heaviest bag we’re all carrying is the one we can’t see. The invisible weight of our own overwhelm.

And for me, a weird side-effect of overwhelm is feeling like I need stuff to do everyday things.

Like I need a new shirt to go and buy eggs, or I can’t go to the shop because I may buy water and potatoes, and they are heavy, so I should go and buy a car first, and then it will be easier to get the water and potatoes home.

It took me longer to write that sentence than it would take me to walk to the shop to get the potatoes and water.

It’s nonsense, of course. That’s the lie overwhelm tells you: that you need something bigger, shinier, more powerful — when actually, you don’t.

This summer, I deleted the social media apps — and email — from my phone. Not because I’m a digital minimalist. Because I was losing my mind.

The 3 AM Replay and Iggy Pop

I’d wake at 3 am with my heart racing, replaying horrors and highlight reels I’d just scrolled. Vigo in Galicia is a calm coastal city where our biggest drama is whether the café across the road sells out of tortillas before noon.

Although my hero, Iggy Pop, did play live in the docks here in summer 2022, and for a city like this, that really was dangerous.

The rest of the time, life here is quiet. Which is why it felt so absurd that I was wired like a soldier in a bunker, braced for collapse through a six-inch screen.

You know how it goes. You check one thing, and an hour vanishes. You can’t even remember why you opened the app.

• See something grim →
• Chase it with a recipe video or a comedy clip →
• Bounce back to the grim thing →
• Buy something you don’t need.

If you’re not careful, doomscrolling takes you to some ridiculous places — like me staring at a shopping cart with anti-ageing cream, a penis enlarger, an avocado slicer and a back scratcher at 11:30 at night.

None of which I need. That’s how absurd the quagmire gets. Funny on the surface — but underneath, it isn’t funny at all.

I’ve been in and out of this cycle since I first had internet on a phone. And it’s brutal. Because scrolling isn’t neutral: it’s self-harm dressed up as “catching up.”

When I finally deleted the apps from my phone, it wasn’t just about avoiding temptation — my phone itself felt lighter. I suddenly had more space in my day, and I started filling that space with the stuff I already had: work that matters, doing my taxes, writing things like this. Everything began to breathe again — me, my head, even my phone.

One of the best things I’ve done for my anxiety is drawing a hard line after six. No screens.

I will use my phone to listen to books while I walk or cook. And in the 'new' space, I 'suddenly' had my ability to face real problems returned. My creativity came back — with energy, not exhaustion.

It is also worth noting that I'd put an app on my phone to measure and limit my screen time, but after a while, my addiction was so intense that I just skipped past it.

Last week, I told my therapist how life events had kept me in a constant state of red alert — and in some ways, I’ve lived like that for years.

Of course, it sounds absurd.

• My family isn’t in Ukraine.
• Or Gaza. Or Sudan.
• Or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Or Myanmar (Burma).
  
  We’re safe in Galicia, where the biggest drama is still tortillas running out before lunch.
  
  

And yet my nervous system hasn’t got the memo. Social media keeps me wired for crisis, braced for collapse. It fuels and maintains that false sense of high alert — my comfort zone of panic.

This is the Consumer Story in action. We think we’re choosing what to consume. In reality, the platforms are choosing what consumes us.

The Digital Divide Is About Who Gets Crushed

There are only two types of people: those who examine what’s consuming their attention, and those who don’t.

On the Coworking Values Podcast, Williamz Omope told me about teaching people in his job club to use ChatGPT to write letters to landlords about mould in their kids’ bedrooms.

Like Kofi Oppong at Urban MBA he’s helping London people furthest from tech use AI to advocate for themselves.

“I’m teaching them how to use ChatGPT to write a letter to their landlord to tell them off about the mould in the corner of their child’s bedroom. It’s providing access to services and knowledge you wouldn’t normally have unless you’re paying for it or around people who talk about this stuff.”

Could you sit with that? We live in a world where you need AI to fight for basic dignity. If you can’t navigate the maze, you live with mould.

This isn’t progress. It’s a protection racket dressed as innovation.

And it’s wildly profitable. Meta alone made $135 billion last year, selling slices of our attention.

We’re not just complicit. Too often, we’re selling the same dream. We promise “connection” and deliver surveillance capitalism with a smile.

Another Heavy Bag: Convenience vs Conscience

In my network, people are discussing the need to ditch tools like Google, searching for alternatives that aren’t entangled with conflict and extraction. Francesca Albanese’s report about companies profiting from the war in Gaza pushed that conversation louder.

And it lives rent-free in my head.

Here’s the paradox: as a one-person operation, those very tools let me do the work of a team.

Google Workspace and Google NotebookLM power my research, writing, publishing, and organisation. I've been a one-person show in Google Workspace since it was first introduced as Google Apps, over fifteen years ago, and I know it inside and out.

The switching cost is enormous. But every time I use them, I feel the weight of complicity pressing down.

That’s the thing about heavy bags. They’re not always about distraction. Sometimes the real burden is the moral dilemma: the tools that empower us are woven into the systems that break us.

Should we all have a little less Google in our lives?

This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening right now.

Last week, our friend Andy Davis asked: Should we all have a little less Google in our lives?

He pointed to Google’s rising greenhouse gas emissions and the AI energy demands driving them — and how sustainability language has shifted on their site.

Read Andy’s post (and the thoughtful replies) 👉 here.

I said in the comments that if I had to switch today, I’d probably go “all Apple” with Kortex — but even that has trade-offs. Every move has friction.

That’s the invisible bag most of us carry: the tug-of-war between convenience and conscience.

The Polished Lie That’s Killing Community

Coworking didn’t start as a product. It started as values. We turned those values into content. We turned community into performance.

David Walker told me this on the Coworking Values Podcast

“There’s a big bias towards design over engagement. Everyone has fancy glass walls, everyone has sit-stand desks, but the messy spaces are where the magic happens.”

The messy spaces ARE where the magic happens.

But try telling that to an investor. Try telling that to a design blog. Instead, we keep building sterile hotel lobbies and calling them “community”.

Real community is messy. It’s uncomfortable. It’s people arriving with grief, rage, and rough edges. Polished spaces breed performance, not belonging.

The Weight of the World

That’s the invisible bag most of us carry: the tug-of-war between convenience and conscience. Annoying, yes. But it’s still a luxury problem.

Because some people are carrying bags so heavy that they could crush them.

Samia Tossio knows this. She’s carrying the loss of 59 family members in Gaza since October 7th 2023. Instead of letting it destroy her, she’s turned it into art, activism, and the raw, beautiful energy of survival.

“It has been both brutal but so beautiful… In one word, I guess that makes it Brutal.”

That’s a strength. Not pretending the weight isn’t there. Using it to feed others.

Do the work

Here’s the thing about heavy bags: sometimes you can’t put them down. But you can choose how you carry them. Here are three things to try this week.

1) Delete one app today. Not the one you use most — the one that makes you feel worst about yourself. You already know which one. Be ruthless! Delete it now, before you scroll on.

2) Set a screen curfew. After 6 pm, screens stay closed. Walk. Cook. Read. Let your nervous system remember peace.

3) Ask one person: “What’s the heaviest thing you’re carrying right now?” Not “How are you?” Ask about the weight (not their weight, the weight!) Listen. Don’t fix. Witness.

These aren’t revolutions. They’re carrots, not roast full dinners. Small changes clear space for bigger ones.

Bernie’s Picks

📚 Book: In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain by Tom Vitale. Not a neat life-hack manual — a messy, behind-the-scenes look at making TV in volatile places, and what it took to work with a legend. More here.

🎧 Podcast: Art as Weapons of Mass Creation with Samia Tossio. What happens when a coworking space becomes the only place in London brave enough to hold space for the hardest conversations? Listen here

📺 Video: Google NotebookLM. Forget the “build a unicorn from your phone” hype. As a dyslexic person, NotebookLM is my secret weapon — I load reports and listen back as podcasts. Genuinely life-changing for research and recall.

🌍 Free Resource: ACTionism - "The art of finding your people and taking collective action." This site gives you practical ways to move from inspiration to action through community screenings, repair initiatives, and local projects. actionism.space

💬 Community: The LinkedIn Coworking Group continues to be where conversations happen, including Future Leaders of Coworking, Coworking Canada and all those podcast conversations!

Thank you for your time and attention today!

Bernie 💚🍉

p.s. Unreasonable Connection is coming up for Coworking Community Builders on Wednesday!