Every day a person encounters phrases like “I was not in the source” or “I am not in the stream at the moment” on social networks. The trend of labeling mental states has shifted from a simple mental disorder focus to something more intricate and fragmented.
Now each moment feels either frustrating or torn apart, and the texture of experience is easy to misread.
The narrator is a middle-aged man who longs for a return to simpler habits: sturdy shoes, a honest day’s work, perhaps a river retreat away from current fashions. Or, maybe, a desire to milk the cow in the early hours. Yet he resolves to understand what this phenomenon means and where its roots lie.
He scanned Instagram, which is blocked in Russia, and YouTube, which remains accessible. And there it all appeared—countless self-help programs, seemingly produced on a factory line in some hidden workshop. Interestingly, the shift is not just in form but in tone: five years ago these seminars claimed pseudo-scientific credibility, while today the rhetoric has shed those claims entirely.
Where once terms borrowed from psychology carried academic weight, now words like “toxicity” and “environmental friendliness” saturate commentary. The most striking change is that, even for a reader deeply familiar with competing theories, it is nearly impossible to decipher what the individual authors truly mean by these so-called conditions.
More surprising is the audience drawn to such voices. Adults confess they cannot manage daily life because they feel they have fallen out of the “source.”
Not in the source. It is worth noting that a great-grandmother, who raised her siblings during tumultuous times and through two wars, would she have said she was out of the source?
Visualization has become fashionable. Advice runs that if one wants to achieve something, one should visualize the outcome and the path to it. The homegrown therapists and coaches echo this now as a standard practice.
In a personal test, the narrator tried the method to see if it could rescue him from feeling out of the flow. He sat on a couch and let the mind wander wildly. The result was not the Bentley arriving under the window but rather a reminder that effort is necessary—visualization alone does not conjure the desired reality.
Perhaps the misstep lay in the method itself. The concern about toxicity is raised, and the experiment is evaluated as possibly flawed by its own premise.
What is witnessed in real time is a broad, generational shift toward infantilization. Grown individuals recount childhood disappointments with a litter of excuses, looking for ever more convenient paths to gain what they want, with minimal effort. The idea that life should be comfortable all the time, and that overcoming stress is optional for success, seems not only accepted but popular. The pace of public discourse has changed dramatically in just a few decades.
In response, a concise and practical training is proposed. It has been tested repeatedly on both the narrator and others, with consistent results.
For readers, the message is clear: meaningful progress comes from sustained work. Rather than chasing a stream, or memorizing courses and webinars, the emphasis is on disciplined, tangible effort—abundant and productive work, carried out with intention.
One invitation remains consistent: try the approach and see how it feels. This stance addresses a broad audience that feels overwhelmed and eager for a straightforward path forward.
It should be noted that the perspective shared here reflects a personal viewpoint and may differ from others’ opinions within the publication ecosystem [citation: attribution requested].