When Did We Stop Being Present? A Small Business Owner's Honest Letter to Australia in 2026
I need to be honest with you about something that's been weighing on me. Not as someone trying to sell you storage solutions, but as another Australian trying to make sense of what's happening to our country right now.
Something has shifted. Maybe you've felt it too.
We banned social media for kids under 16 - 4.7 million accounts deactivated - hoping it would fix something fundamental. But here we are, weeks later, and teens are already finding workarounds through VPNs while the rest of us scroll mindlessly through our own feeds, doom-scrolling through content that makes us feel worse, not better. The ban made headlines, but it didn't solve the deeper problem: we've all become disconnected from what's real.
I watch this happening everywhere. At my kids' sports games, parents sit on the sidelines staring at their phones instead of watching their children play. At concerts and events, people experience moments through screens rather than being present. We've all become curators of fake lives on social media while our real lives - messy, imperfect, struggling - get hidden away like they're shameful.
And honestly? I'm tired of pretending everything is fine when it's clearly not.
The Uncomfortable Truths We're Not Talking About
Let me lay out what I'm seeing, because I think we all feel it but nobody wants to say it out loud.
Mental health in Australia is in crisis. Not "concerning" or "worth monitoring" - an actual crisis. One in five Australians experienced a mental disorder in the past year. Among people aged 16-24, that number jumps to 38.8%. Suicide is the leading cause of death among young Australians. Workplace mental health is at pandemic levels, with three-quarters of Australian employees feeling overwhelmed.
These aren't just statistics. These are our kids. Our colleagues. Our neighbours. Ourselves.
Financial stress has jumped from 57% to 77% of households in just six years. Interest rates might climb when we're already drowning. Retail is struggling - in-store purchases dropping from 45% to 41%, average spend per order at a decade low. Customer service is dying because businesses are cutting costs everywhere they can, outsourcing to call centers overseas where nobody actually cares about solving your problem.
We've outsourced nearly everything else too. Australian manufacturing has been in steady decline for decades. We export raw materials to China, then import finished products back, acting surprised when something says "Made in China" even though we created this system. We used to make cars here. We used to make trains here. Now we can't even manufacture the things we desperately need.
And housing? The dream of owning a home and raising a family - the dream that defined previous generations - feels increasingly impossible for young Australians who are doing everything right but still can't get ahead.
Meanwhile, we've become a society that doesn't read instructions anymore. We want everything instant. We want to "smash through" tasks without understanding them, then complain when things don't work. We've lost patience. We've lost the ability to sit with difficulty. We've lost the willingness to actually learn.
I could keep going, but you get the picture. This is where we are in 2026.
What Broke, and When Did It Happen?
Here's what I keep coming back to: when did we stop being present?
When did we stop looking at each other during conversations? When did we start experiencing life through phone screens instead of with our actual senses? When did consuming become more important than creating? When did convenience become more valued than connection?
I don't have a neat answer. Maybe it was gradual. Maybe it was the inevitable result of a thousand small choices we all made - choosing ease over effort, choosing screens over faces, choosing transactions over relationships.
But I do know this: we've lost something essential. We've lost connection.
Connection to each other. Connection to our communities. Connection to the things we buy and where they come from. Connection to the value of work and craftsmanship. Connection to patience and the satisfaction that comes from doing something difficult. Connection to presence - just being here, now, paying attention to what's actually happening.
And it's making us miserable.
All the mental health statistics, all the financial stress, all the dissatisfaction - these are symptoms of disconnection. When you're not present in your own life, when you're not connected to anything real, of course you feel anxious and depressed. How could you not?
The Problem with Modern Retail (And Why I Started Smart Storage)
Let me talk about my industry for a minute, because it's a perfect microcosm of everything I'm describing.
Most retail in Australia has become purely transactional. You buy something online from a faceless company. If it breaks or doesn't work, you deal with an offshore customer service team reading from scripts who can't actually help you. If you're unhappy, your only power is to leave a one-star review - often anonymously, often angrily, often without giving the business any chance to make it right.
There's no relationship. No connection. No genuine help. Just transactions and algorithms optimising for profit margins.
My wife and I started Smart Storage in March 2025 partly because we experienced this ourselves. We spent weekends driving around Melbourne looking for outdoor storage solutions. Every place we went, we got the same treatment: disinterested staff, pressure to buy whatever was in stock regardless of whether it fit our needs, zero follow-up, zero care beyond the sale.
We'd ask questions - real questions about whether something would work for our specific situation - and get brushed off or given obviously wrong information just to close the sale. When we got things home and they didn't work as promised, there was nowhere to turn for help.
It was exhausting. It was frustrating. And it made us realise: if this is what shopping has become, no wonder people are miserable.
So we started our business on a ridiculously simple premise: what if we actually cared? What if we answered the phone ourselves? What if we gave honest advice even when it meant recommending something less expensive or admitting we didn't have what someone needed? What if we treated people like human beings instead of conversion metrics?
Revolutionary, right? Except it's not revolutionary at all. It's just how business used to be done before everything became about scale and automation and maximising shareholder value.
What We're Really Selling (And It's Not Storage)
Here's the thing I've realised over the past year running this business: we're not really selling sheds and storage boxes.
We're selling the infrastructure that enables presence. That enables connection. That enables people to actually live the lives they want to live instead of constantly struggling with chaos and disorganisation.
When a parent calls us stressed about sports equipment scattered everywhere, we're not just selling them an outdoor storage box. We're selling them the ability to teach their kids to put things away properly. We're selling them the peace of mind that comes from having systems that work. We're selling them time - time they'd otherwise spend searching for lost items or replacing things that got destroyed from improper storage.
When someone wants to start doing more DIY projects but their tools are a disorganised mess, we're not just selling them a shed. We're selling them the capability to become more self-reliant. We're selling them the foundation for learning new skills. We're selling them the possibility of teaching their kids how to fix and build and maintain instead of always replacing and consuming.
When a family wants to organise their home so mornings are less chaotic, we're not just selling them storage solutions. We're selling them the infrastructure for calmer family life. We're selling them the systems that make presence possible instead of constant reactivity.
This sounds grandiose, I know. We sell sheds. We sell storage boxes. We're not saving the world.
But I genuinely believe that in 2026, when disconnection and overwhelm are the defining features of modern Australian life, helping people create organised, functional spaces where they can actually be present - that matters. It matters more than it would have mattered twenty years ago when life moved slower and people had more margin.
Why Small Family Businesses Matter More Than Ever
I want to talk about why businesses like ours - small, family-run, not backed by venture capital or optimising for acquisition - matter so much right now.
When you call Smart Storage, you talk to me. Not a call center. Not a chatbot. Not someone reading from a script who doesn't have authority to actually solve your problem. Me. A real person running a real business with real skin in the game.
If I give you bad advice, I'll hear about it directly. If something doesn't work, you'll tell me and I'll have to look you in the eye (metaphorically, over the phone) and make it right. My reputation isn't some abstract corporate brand that can absorb bad reviews - it's my actual reputation in my actual community.
This creates accountability that doesn't exist in faceless corporate retail. It creates genuine incentive to help rather than just to sell.
But more than that, it creates connection. Real human connection in a world that's increasingly devoid of it.
When you buy from us, you're not just completing a transaction. You're supporting a family trying to build something honest. You're voting for a different way of doing business. You're choosing connection over convenience, relationship over algorithm.
And I know that sounds self-serving coming from someone running a small business. But I genuinely believe this is part of how we reclaim what we've lost. By choosing to support businesses that treat us like humans. By insisting on actual customer service rather than accepting whatever automated response we get. By valuing the relationship, not just the transaction.
Big retailers can offer lower prices through scale. They can offer faster delivery through massive logistics networks. They can offer endless selection through international supply chains.
What they can't offer is someone who actually cares whether you get the right solution for your specific situation. Someone who'll spend thirty minutes on the phone helping you think through your options without pushing the most expensive choice. Someone who'll follow up after your purchase to make sure it worked for you.
That's what small businesses offer. That's what we're fighting to preserve in a retail landscape that's increasingly dominated by algorithms and automation.
The Irony of Everything Being "Made in China"
Let me address the manufacturing elephant in the room.
Most of what we sell is made in China. I'm not going to lie to you about that or pretend otherwise. And yes, there's deep irony in talking about supporting Australian business while selling products manufactured overseas.
But here's the uncomfortable reality: Australian manufacturing has declined so dramatically over the past decades that we don't have many alternatives. We outsourced the making of nearly everything, and now we're stuck with the consequences.
Research shows that only 21% of Australians now say they'd be more likely to buy something knowing it was made in China - down significantly from pre-pandemic levels. People want Australian-made products. But those products often don't exist anymore, or they're priced so far above imported alternatives that most families struggling with a cost-of-living crisis can't afford them.
This is the bind we're all in. We created a system where manufacturing fled to wherever labour was cheapest. We celebrated cheap consumer goods without thinking about what we were losing. And now we're surprised that we can't manufacture critical supplies, that we don't have sovereign capability, that we're dependent on global supply chains that can be disrupted by anything from pandemics to geopolitical tensions.
I don't have a solution to this on a national level. I'm just a guy running a small storage business.
But what I can do is be honest about it. I can tell you exactly where our products come from. I can help you choose quality items that will last rather than cheap items you'll replace in a year. I can stand behind what we sell with genuine service and support, even though we didn't make it ourselves.
And maybe that's part of the answer too - not pretending to be something we're not, but being honest and doing the best we can within the system that exists while hoping for something better.
What Our Products Actually Do (Without the Marketing BS)
Since we're being honest, let me tell you what our products actually do and don't do.
A garden shed doesn't solve your life problems. It's a metal or timber structure that keeps rain off your stuff. That's it.
But a properly organised shed can enable you to take better care of what you own. It can make DIY projects accessible because your tools have obvious homes. It can teach your kids organisational systems by creating physical infrastructure they can see and use. It can protect equipment you spent money on from weather damage. It can create designated spaces for different parts of your life - garden stuff here, sports stuff there, tools in this section.
An outdoor storage box doesn't make you a better parent. It's a container with a lid.
But a designated place for sports equipment means your kids can actually find and put away their own gear, teaching them responsibility and independence. It means equipment lasts longer because it's not scattered in the elements. It means Saturday morning sports doesn't begin with a frantic search for soccer cleats. It creates one less source of stress in family life.
Organisation systems don't guarantee calm mornings. They're hooks and bins and labels.
But they eliminate the daily friction of "where is my..." that derails routines and creates arguments. They make obvious what needs to happen, reducing the mental load of remembering and directing. They enable kids to operate more independently, which builds capability. They create margin for when things go wrong, because when things go right they go really right.
I'm not claiming our products are magical. I'm not promising they'll transform your life or solve all your problems.
I'm saying they can provide the infrastructure that makes the life you're trying to build more possible. They're tools, not solutions. But good tools, properly used, genuinely help.
And in 2026, when we're all drowning in chaos and overwhelm, even small help matters.
The Kind of Business I'm Trying to Build
Let me tell you what I'm trying to do with Smart Storage, because it connects to everything I've been talking about.
I want to build a business where honesty matters more than optimisation. Where I can tell someone "you don't need our most expensive option" without worrying about hitting quarterly targets. Where I can admit when I don't have the right solution rather than selling them something inadequate.
I want to build a business where genuine help comes before the sale. Where I can spend an hour on the phone with someone thinking through their situation even if they don't buy anything. Where people feel supported, not pressured.
I want to build a business where customer service actually means service. Where we answer our phones. Where problems get solved by the person who created them - me - rather than bounced between departments. Where we follow up to make sure things worked rather than disappearing after the transaction.
I want to build a business that treats people the way I want to be treated when I'm the customer. With respect. With honesty. With genuine care about whether the thing I'm buying actually solves my problem.
This is harder than it sounds in 2026. It's not scalable. It's not optimisable. It doesn't fit neatly into growth-at-all-costs startup mythology.
But it's human. It's real. It's connected.
And I believe that's what Australian consumers are desperately craving right now - even if they don't consciously realise it. Real human interaction with businesses that actually care.
We don't make a ton of money doing this. Some months I've given things away for nothing just to help someone who was struggling. That's not sustainable business advice. But it's the kind of business I want to be part of building.
Because at the end of the day, I have to live with myself. I have to look my kids in the eye and tell them what I do matters. And selling storage while treating people like metrics? That doesn't matter. But helping Australian families build better lives through honest service and genuine care? That does matter.
Even if it's small. Even if it's just sheds and storage boxes.
What 2026 Could Be (If We Chose Differently)
Here's what keeps me up at night: I don't think this trajectory is inevitable.
I don't think we have to accept disconnection and doom-scrolling and mental health crises and dying retail and outsourced everything and fake social media lives as permanent features of Australian society.
I think we could choose differently. Individually and collectively.
We could choose to put down our phones and be present with our kids. We could choose to support businesses that treat us like humans rather than always defaulting to whoever offers the cheapest price. We could choose to invest in learning skills and building capability rather than always outsourcing everything. We could choose connection over convenience. We could choose honesty over performance. We could choose community over isolation.
But it would require actually choosing. Consciously. Repeatedly. In ways that might feel harder in the moment but build something better over time.
It would require saying no to the constant pull of screens and social media and manufactured urgency. It would require paying slightly more to support businesses we believe in rather than always optimising for price. It would require investing time in doing things ourselves rather than paying someone else. It would require showing up and being present even when it's easier to check out.
It would require us to collectively decide that how we do things matters as much as what we do.
I don't know if we'll make those choices. The forces pulling us toward disconnection are powerful - algorithmic, profitable, designed to be addictive. Fighting against them feels like swimming upstream.
But I do know this: every time someone chooses presence over distraction, connection over transaction, quality over convenience -they're casting a vote for the world they want to live in. And enough votes, enough small choices, can shift culture.
That's what I'm trying to do with Smart Storage. Cast votes with how I run this business. Demonstrate that there's a different way. Show that genuine service and honest help still matter, even in an increasingly automated retail world.
It's a small contribution. It's just storage solutions for Australian families. It won't change national policy or fix manufacturing or solve the mental health crisis.
But it's what I can do. It's my small act of resistance against everything that's making Australian life harder and more disconnected.
Why I'm Telling You All This
You might be wondering why I'm writing this instead of just marketing storage products like a normal business.
Partly because I'm genuinely worried about where we're heading as a society, and I needed to say this for my kids and their future.
Partly because I believe honesty and vulnerability build the kind of connection I've been talking about, and I want to practice what I'm preaching.
But mostly because I think there are thousands of other Australians feeling exactly what I'm feeling. Sensing that something important has been lost. Wanting to reclaim presence and connection and meaning. Looking for alternatives to the endless scroll and the fake performance and the transactional everything.
If that's you - if any of this resonated - I want you to know you're not alone. You're not crazy for wanting something different. You're not failing because modern life feels overwhelming and disconnected.
The system we're living in was designed to make us feel this way. Disconnected. Anxious. Always consuming but never satisfied. Always busy but never present. Always connected digitally but profoundly isolated.
But we can choose differently. In small ways, in individual moments, in how we spend our money and our time and our attention.
Choose the local coffee shop over the chain, and actually talk to the barista. Choose to watch your kid's entire football game without checking your phone once. Choose to learn how to fix something yourself instead of immediately buying a replacement. Choose to call a small business and have a real conversation instead of clicking "add to cart" on the biggest retailer.
Choose presence. Choose connection. Choose what's real.
That's what I'm trying to do. That's what Smart Storage represents, beyond just the physical products we sell.
And if you're trying to do it too - build a more present life, teach your kids what actually matters, create organised spaces that enable rather than overwhelm, support businesses that care - then we're on this journey together.
An Honest Invitation
If you need storage solutions, I'd genuinely love to help you. Not because I'm trying to hit sales targets, but because I believe in what we're building and I think we can actually help.
We'll have an honest conversation about what you need. We'll recommend the right solution, which might not be the most expensive one. We'll follow up to make sure it worked. We'll actually answer when you call. We'll treat you like a human being who deserves genuine service.
That's it. That's what we offer.
No free shipping (except over $50 - because shipping costs real money). No fake urgency. No manipulative marketing. Just honest help from a family business trying to do right by Australian customers.
And if you don't need storage solutions, I'd still love for you to take something from this: the reminder that we can choose differently. That connection matters more than convenience. That presence is possible even in 2026's chaotic, screen-addicted world.
That small family businesses trying to do things honestly deserve our support, because they're part of the solution to what's broken.
That we're not powerless in the face of everything I've described. We have agency. We have choice. Every purchase, every interaction, every moment we choose presence over distraction - those matter.
They add up. They compound. They create the culture we want to live in.
What I Want for Australia
If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing about Australian society in 2026, it wouldn't be about storage or retail or even my business.
It would be this: I want us to remember how to be present with each other.
Present at our kids' games. Present in conversations. Present in our communities. Present in our own lives instead of constantly performing them for social media or doom-scrolling through other people's performances.
I want us to rebuild connection - to each other, to our work, to the things we buy and where they come from, to what actually matters.
I want us to value craftsmanship and service and genuine help again, instead of just optimising for price and convenience.
I want young Australians to believe they can build good lives here, can own homes, can raise families, can contribute something meaningful.
I want us to support each other - through small businesses, through community, through showing up for each other in real, not just digital, ways.
I don't know if this is naive. Maybe it is. Maybe disconnection and algorithmic optimisation and transactional everything is just the inevitable future and we need to adapt.
But I'm not ready to accept that yet. I'm going to keep building Smart Storage as a small act of resistance. Keep answering my phone. Keep giving honest advice. Keep treating customers like humans who deserve genuine help.
Keep believing that how we do things matters. That presence is possible. That connection is worth fighting for.
And if you're with me on this - if you want to reclaim presence and build something better - then let's do it together. One small choice at a time. One genuine interaction at a time. One act of showing up at a time.
That's how we change culture. That's how we reclaim what we've lost.
That's how we make 2026 the year we stopped scrolling and started being present again.
Smart Storage: A Family Business Fighting for Connection
We sell sheds and storage solutions for Australian families. But more than that, we're trying to demonstrate that honest service and genuine care still matter in 2026.
When you call us, you talk to real people who actually want to help. When you buy from us, you support a family business choosing connection over convenience.
Free shipping over $50. 30-day returns. Real conversations, real help, real humans.
Because in a disconnected world, that matters more than ever.
Call us. Email us. Let's have a real conversation about what you actually need.
Not what we want to sell you. What you actually need.
That's the kind of business we're building.