Black Screen

The screen was on. But nothing was there.

First weeks in Cyprus. Sun, sea, palm trees. The Instagram post would have looked amazing.

But inside? Nothing.

I sat down at my desk every morning. Laptop open. Screen on. And then: blank screen. Not because the laptop was broken. Because my head was empty.

No idea. No impulse. No energy. Not even enough energy to be frustrated.

One week. Every single day.

Monday: laptop open. Stare. Close it. Tuesday: laptop open. Stare. Close it. Wednesday: same. Thursday: same.

I had things to do. The to-do list existed. Emails that needed answers. Projects waiting. But I just couldn't. My mind wanted to. My body said no.

The worst part wasn't that nothing came. The worst part was knowing: normally I'm the guy who gets up at 6 and works until midnight. The guy who builds an 80-page workbook in 5 days. And now I was sitting there unable to answer a single email.

It's over

"I thought: it's over. Alex, you're done. Burnout. Whatever that even means."

5 years of overwork. We had been functioning — my wife and I. Not living. Functioning. Every day. No vacation. Just work in our heads. All the stress from the job dragged straight into the family. Not good.

And now on top of that: selling the house. Emigrating. 2 kids in a completely new world. New school, new language, new country. Everything at once. All of it at once.

At some point the barrel is full. And then it doesn't overflow — it just stops.

Netflix and the sea

I watched Netflix. Walked along the beach. Drank coffee and stared at the Mediterranean. For hours. Tried not to think about the fact that my bank account was slowly shrinking and I had no plan for how to make money.

My wife let me be. She didn't say "You need to do something." She didn't push. She just took the kids, organized school, built our daily life from scratch — and left me alone. Without her I would have broken during that phase.

The hardest part

The hardest part of that phase wasn't the emptiness. It was the silence. No content. No post. No email. Nobody asking where I was. Because online: when you stop posting, you stop existing.

My last email was from April 14, 2025. After that: 10 months of silence. Not a single sign of life. No "Hey, I'm taking a break." Just gone.

For 10 weeks I did nothing. And "nothing" is harder than it sounds. Because you think you should be doing something. Because you see others posting and launching and scaling. And you're sitting in Cyprus watching Netflix.

But my body said: stop. Not tomorrow. Now. And when your body says stop, you have two options: listen or collapse.

I listened.

What I think about it today

The blank screen wasn't the problem. It was the solution. My body did what I never would have done: hit the brakes. Forced me to do nothing. Forced me to just be there — without productivity, without output, without results.

And at some point, after weeks, something happened. Not dramatic. Not sudden. Slow. Like a battery charging. 1%. 2%. 5%. Until my fingers started itching again.

— Alex, Paphos, November 2025

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The blank screen wasn't the problem. It was the solution.

My body did what I never would have done: stop. And that's exactly what I tell my clients today — sometimes the best thing you can do is stop working and start looking.