Ever stood in the supermarket staring at a $14 “gut-healing” loaf of bread and thought, this can’t possibly be normal? Or opened a meditation app that sends you a push notification reminding you to breathe?
Good news: you’re not imagining it. Life really is this weird.
A book about surviving modern absurdity
Psychologist and writer Lee Hopkins has just released a sharp, funny, and uncomfortably honest new book: You’re Not Imagining It, It IS This Weird: Notes on Surviving the Optimisation Trap.
Part social commentary, part cultural satire, part survival manual, this modern life is weird book takes aim at the endless contradictions we’re all juggling:
- Wellness culture—why eating has become a moral performance.
- Productivity myths—how optimisation culture leaves us more exhausted than fulfilled.
- Authenticity traps—why even being “real” has become a curated performance.
- The crisis of simple things—how food, sleep, and connection got absurdly complicated.
Hopkins doesn’t offer quick fixes or another self-help checklist. Instead, he invites readers to step outside the noise, laugh at the absurdities, and rediscover the joy of being simply, wonderfully human.
Why this book matters now
We live in a time when everything—our sleep, our meals, our relationships, even our “authenticity”—is treated as a project to be optimised, tracked, and monetised. The result? Rising anxiety, choice paralysis, and the sense that no matter what we do, we’re failing some invisible test.
You’re Not Imagining It, It IS This Weird challenges that trap. It’s a reminder that the sanest response might not be to optimise harder, but to laugh, to question, and to trust your own experience again.
Who this book is for
If you’re tired of:
- productivity hacks that don’t make life better
- wellness fads that leave you more anxious than healthy
- social media’s endless performance of “authenticity”
…then this is the book you didn’t know you needed.
About the author
Lee Hopkins is a counselling psychologist and writer whose work blends satire with insight. Drawing on both research and lived experience, he examines how culture, technology, and self-help obsessions shape the way we live, love, and lose our sanity.
Lee currently lives in Đà Lạt, Vietnam—where life is weird in the best possible ways.
Get your copy today
Stop optimising and start living.
Order your copy of You’re Not Imagining It, It IS This Weird now on Amazon:
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FS3JGV33
