You're Not Broken — You Weren't Meant to Process This Much!

There's a sentiment I keep seeing repeated in different corners of the internet. It’s some version of:

"It's not that you're broken. It's that you're trying to function in a system that is."

I've scrolled past this sentiment dozens of times, giving it the obligatory nod of agreement before continuing down my digital rabbit hell hole. But lately, I've been trying to sit with it more. Turning it over in my mind.

Our human brains evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to handle a very different world than the one we're living in.

We weren't designed to:

• Process, in real-time, the entire globe’s suffering
• Stay connected with hundreds or thousands of “friends”
• Endlessly compare our ordinary lives with the highlight reels of others
• Attempt to work while being bombarded with a slew of notifications
• Make decisions from an essentially infinite set of options

Yet here we are, trying to operate ancient hardware on software that seems to update every minute.

By Design, Your Brain Has Its Limits

Your ancestors' biggest concerns were finding food, avoiding predators, and maintaining social bonds with their immediate tribe (probably about 150 people). Their attentional bandwidth was dedicated to immediate, relevant, and local concerns.

Their dopamine systems rewarded finding food, social connection, and solving immediate problems — not endlessly scrolling Instagram, unable to escape.

Their threat detection systems were calibrated for rustling bushes and unknown faces — not a firehose of global catastrophes.

Now we expect these same brains to:

• Toggle between 17 browser tabs (and half a dozen windows)
• Keep calm and carry on in Slack while doomscrolling Twitter (I won’t call it X)
• Process multiple world crises simultaneously
• Maintain the appearance of success and fulfillment across multiple platforms
• Stay informed about all the things, in all the places, all at once

And then we have the nerve to beat ourselves up when we feel overwhelmed, distracted, and inadequate. Is it any wonder?

If, like me, you woke up at 2am last night with your mind racing work projects, the state of the world, your kid's Spring break, and that weird thing you said to your partner two days ago — your brain isn't malfunctioning. It's just trying to process waaaaaaay more than it was ever built to handle.

The Bottleneck of Bandwidth

When was the last time you felt completely caught up? When you had an empty inbox, no notifications, a completed reading list, a perfectly organized home, and you were caught up on all of the world’s important news.

The answer is probably "never” (like most other people). Or maybe "for about 37 seconds in 2012."

It isn’t because you're failing. It's because humans have created systems that generate information and demands faster than we could possibly process them.

Until relatively recently in human history, the amount of new information a person might encounter was limited. Books were precious. News traveled slowly. The number of people you interacted with was constrained by geography.

Heck, I’m only 45 and I remember such a time.

Today? The Library of Alexandria would fit on your phone, along with every song ever recorded, every movie ever made, and a direct line to billions of people worldwide.

Your brain’s not broken. It's overwhelmed. There's a crucial difference.

Oh, That Overwhelm…It’s Real

The other day after dropping my son off at school, I was sitting in my car, parked in my driveway, scrolling through emails while simultaneously listening to a podcast and thinking about my upcoming workout. I hadn't even turned the freakin’ engine off yet. It struck me that I couldn't even transition from one physical space to another without trying to "optimize" those 15 seconds.

My gawd, when did we become like this? When did doing just one thing at a time start to feel insufficient? Or damn near impossible.

We've somehow normalized a level of constant input that no human nervous system can realistically handle. I have no data to back this up, but I’d say the average person today processes more explicit information in a week than someone in the 1400s might have encountered in a year.

That's probably not (much of) an exaggeration. Talk about an overload!

The pandemic accelerated and accentuated all of this. All of a sudden, our homes were also offices, schools, gyms, movie theatres, and social venues — all at once. We once had boundaries to help us compartmentalize different aspects of life. They dissolved, leaving us in an amorphous blob of always-on existence.

It’s no wonder you're tired. That your brain feels foggy. That you can't remember why you walked into the kitchen anymore (maybe that’s my age catching up to me).

The Insidious Illusion of Keeping Up

You and I have been sold this idea that we should be able to keep up. That all those successful people in your feed (the good people, the worthy people), they're managing all of it. They're well-informed, uber productive, hyper-connected socially, politically engaged, physically fit, and mentally balanced.

But honestly, I think it’s an illusion. I doubt much of anybody’s actually keeping up. Not really.

Some are certainly better at the performance of keeping up. Others have succeeding in dramatically narrowing their focus (I’m envious). Many are silently drowning while posting smile-y beach photos anyway.

A growing number, however, are realizing that keeping up was never the point in the first place.

I think there’s a secret that’s rarely revealed. Even the productivity gurus and wellness influencers are struggling (gasp!). Behind those perfectly curated Instagram carousels about "managing it all" you’ll find people just as overwhelmed as the rest of us (and maybe more because of the pressure they feel to keep up appearances).

They're often selling the solution to a problem they haven't actually solved themselves. Does that sound familiar? Writers teaching people how to teach people to write about writing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It’s Time to Find Your Human Pace

So what do we do with this understanding?

Here are some thoughts:

First, be gentle with yourself. Your brain really is doing its best with an impossible task. That feeling of overwhelm isn’t a personal failing. It's a rational response to irrational demands.

Second, recognize that you can't process it all, and trying to do so will leave you exhausted and scattered. Being selective isn't failure. It's wisdom!

Third, remember that your attention is finite and precious. Where you place it matters more than ever. Have intention with your attention.

And finally, consider that maybe — juuuuuust maybe — we weren't meant to live like this at all. The most radical act might be to reclaim your human pace in a world ever-increasingly designed for machines.

What this might look like:

• Setting boundaries around how much news you consume (if any)
• Limiting your social media circles to people you genuinely care about
• Creating spaces in your home that are free from digital intrusion
• Embracing "missing out" on some things, while being fully present for others (JOMO not FOMO)
• Finding joy in doing fewer things, more deeply
• Accepting that you’ll never be caught up, and that's totally fine

I'm nowhere near perfect at any of this. I still find myself mindlessly scrolling at 1am sometimes. I still have days where my brain feels like it's being stretched out like silly putty. I still feel that pang of inadequacy when I see someone online who seems to have it all figured out.

Slowly, I'm learning to recognize these moments for what they are. Rather than evidence that I'm somehow deficient, they’re symptoms of trying to be superhuman in a system demanding it.

Here’s Your Permission Slip

So here it is — your official permission slip to be human in a superhuman world:

• You don't have to keep up with everything.
• You're allowed to not know things.
• You can turn it all off sometimes.
• Your worth isn't measured by your productivity or responsiveness.
• You're not broken for feeling overwhelmed — you're paying attention.

If you've been beating yourself up for feeling scattered, overwhelmed, and/or unable to keep pace with the endless demands of modern life — please know this:

Your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It’s protecting you by recognizing when too much is too much.

Maybe it's time we started listening.

P.S. I know that "less screen time" advice often rings hollow in a world where digital connection is also how we work, maintain relationships, and navigate daily life. I'm not suggesting we all move to cabins in the woods (though some days, that's tempting). Rather, I'm advocating for mindfulness and intention about our digital consumption and permission to create spaces where we engage on more human terms.