Field Note From a Very Strange Time

By: Liz Lazar, Co-Founder & Principal

It feels like everyone is holding their breath right now.

You can feel it underneath conversations. Underneath meetings. Underneath school drop-offs and grocery store small talk and LinkedIn posts about resilience and innovation and growth. There’s this low-grade hum of exhaustion, uncertainty, and anxiety running beneath daily life that’s become so normalized we barely even acknowledge it anymore.

Everyone seems tired. Not just busy-tired. Not “I need a vacation” tired. Deeply tired. Financially tired. Emotionally tired. Decision tired. Spiritually tired. Tired of uncertainty. Tired of noise. Tired of feeling like the ground keeps shifting underneath us every six months. And lately, it also feels like everyone is carrying something heavy.

I personally know people navigating breakups and divorces. Layoffs. Serious health scares. Substance abuse struggles. Career disillusionment. Financial fear. Loneliness. Caregiving exhaustion. People questioning entire identities and life paths they once felt certain about.

Things just feel… hard right now. And yet somehow, life keeps demanding more. More productivity. More responsiveness. More content. More innovation. More resilience. More growth. More certainty about an increasingly uncertain world. There’s this unspoken pressure to keep performing as though everything is normal when, collectively, I don’t think many people actually feel okay.

Sometimes I honestly think what society needs most right now is a collective nap. Or a global meditation session. Or permission to collectively exhale for five minutes without feeling guilty about it. Because so many people are operating in survival mode while pretending they’re simply “busy.”

At the same time, people are quietly carrying enormous weight behind the scenes. They’re trying to lead organizations while worrying about payroll. Trying to raise kids while worrying about the future. Trying to build businesses while wondering if they’re completely out of their minds for trying. Trying to hold teams together while they themselves feel overwhelmed.

There’s so much noise right now that I think many of us have forgotten what steadiness even feels like. And maybe that’s part of why so many organizations feel stuck. Not because people don’t care. Not because they aren’t working hard enough. But because it’s incredibly difficult to think strategically when you’re operating in a constant state of mental and emotional overload.

At Omni, we spend a lot of time talking about infrastructure, alignment, readiness, sustainability, and strategy. But underneath all of those conversations is something more human. People are trying to build stable, meaningful things in a moment that feels profoundly unstable.

I think about this a lot lately as both a business owner and a parent. There’s a strange tension to this season of life. On one hand, there’s pressure to move faster than ever. AI. Automation. Scaling. Growth. Reinvention. Constant adaptation.

On the other hand, I think many people are craving the exact opposite.

• Clarity.

• Calm.

• Focus.

• Sustainability.

A life that actually feels livable. Not performative success. Not hustle culture disguised as ambition. Not burnout framed as leadership. Just… enough steadiness to think clearly again.

And honestly, I wonder sometimes: what would it take for all of us to feel permission to slow down a little? To pump the brakes before we completely burn ourselves into the ground? Why does rest feel like failure for so many people? Why have we normalized functioning at a constant state of overwhelm?

Maybe that’s part of the work now — personally and organizationally. Not just building faster. Not just producing more. But building systems, teams, cultures, and lives that can actually withstand uncertainty without completely exhausting the people inside them.

I don’t have some polished conclusion here. These are just observations from the field. But I do know this: The leaders and organizations that will navigate this season best probably won’t be the loudest ones. They’ll be the ones capable of creating clarity in the middle of chaos. The ones willing to slow down long enough to think strategically. The ones building sustainably instead of reactively. The ones honest enough to admit that this is, in fact, a very strange time.

And maybe there’s some comfort in realizing we’re not the only ones feeling it.