Our thoughts are fleeting, capture them while you can.

“Seek knowledge that is universally accepted.”

That’s what I transcribed on the Amazon Legal Pad with my BIC blue pen while in that hypnagogia sleep state the other night.

Over two years ago I wrote the article “Take Advice with a Pound of Salt,” where I explored the often hypocritical nature of advice, as well as how there is no shortage of media influencers, marketers, or content creators convincing you they have the formula to get you where you need to go. When in reality, there is often times more than one way to skin a cat.

Social media, and now the rapid adoption of AI, has oversaturated the world of ‘knowledge’ such that one is hard pressed to not find an opposing viewpoint or alternative take on a matter at hand. As an individual who lives in the gray and doesn’t like seeing the world as black and white, there are benefits to the expansive spectrum of opinions. That said, the paradox of choice/options has systemically plagued the landscape such that the signal for sound advice/knowledge/truth has grown increasingly faint.

Shane Parrish’s headline for his newsletter is “Welcome to Brain Food, your weekly signal in a world full of noise.” His attempt at conveying this exact point that we are overstimulated with inputs and need a way to orient ourselves.

It’s obvious that the technological advances and creations of our time have systemically altered human behavior and now capture our attention for most of our wakeful hours. Content creators are creating ever more polarizing and stimulating content to monetize on our basic variable reward dopamine paths that essentially turn us into content addicts. That’s not the noise I’m talking about here.

Rather this is a more nuanced observation, that even when you cut through the clutter of just useless noise to get to strong signals, there are STILL multiple, competing perspectives on many important aspects of life.

I want to note. I’m doing my best to reframe from saying ‘advice’ in this article as the core question I’m wrestling with goes above just ‘good advice’ and is trying to hone in on truth. I view this much like the classic square to rectangle relationship. Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square. Real ‘truth’ is sound advice, but not all advice is the truth.

Take for example a very common predicament of cleaning your house. This isn’t necessarily an ‘important’ aspect of life but it is directly downstream of a way of life that truly impacts the experiences you have in this world. Stay with me.

Essentially you have two options. You clean the house yourself or you hire professionals to come clean it for you. If you just like watching the world burn I guess you don’t have to clean it (you know who you are).

Let’s break it down. If you clean it yourself you’ll get the satisfaction and reward of committing to a task. You won’t have to worry about having strangers in your house. If you’re a ‘mental worker’ for your monetary job, then the physical work of the cleaning will be a much welcomed relaxation on your brain, rather than more time in front of a screen. Oh, and you get more steps in! Waist line might start shrinking.

Ok, so now let’s say you hire cleaners. This gives you 2-4 hours back in your day that can now be allocated towards family commitments, other entertainment, or even other chores. After those ‘long’ hours at work, you can reward yourself with some true relaxation and just hire cleaners so you can go ‘live your best life’.

Which approach is right?

I don’t know.

A book that I absolutely love is “Die with Zero,” by Bill Perkins where he showcases clear rationale and anecdotal evidence for why hiring the cleaning crew ultimately gives you more utility in life. His analysis of the time-money trade off is extremely compelling and substantiated, where he emphasizes that we humans think we want to manage money, when in reality the true resource we should master is time. Prioritizing a bank for of money instead of a bank for of memories and experiences is what Bill says is the greatest hoax of our modern aspirations framework. Your money won’t bring you any value when you’re six feet deep. Buy the night vision goggles. Take the trip with your kids. Give more to charity.

I’ll read a book like that by Bill Perkins, digest the message, and determine there is some real knowledge there. I’ll try applying that approach in areas of my life where I think it makes sense.

I’ll think I have a nugget of knowledge to anchor my life to moving forward! Life is good.

Only to then read a newsletter or listen to a podcast and next thing you know, I’ll come across a quote like “If you work with your mind, rest with your hands,” by theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel and that whole plan goes up in smoke.

Shit, that’s deep.

And rather contradictory to what Bill was saying.

There is a real biological implication at play here too. It’s not just a pithy quote, but a reality that neuroscientist have been able to map. Studying the brain, they can show empirically how a shift from the active/stressed prefrontal cortex during cognitive mental work gets reallocated towards the sensory-motor region when an individual does a physical task. Not only that, some repetitive hand movement activities can act as a form of meditation and lower the activity in the amygdala, reducing anxiety and burnout. I’m not saying science is the answer, but it provides a point of view that should at least have a say at the dinner table.

Ok, so do I clean the house myself now?

You see the dilemma.

Is one fundamentally the better option? Or better ‘advice’? If so, how would you know?

Let’s say you ask 100 people for their advice as to which option is better. If 51 people said to choose option A and hire the movers, does that settle it?

My sense is we would all agree that majority doesn’t mean truth. For the forces of herd mentality and groupthink are ever prevalent. Just because there is overwhelming support for an idea/way doesn’t mean it’s ‘the best’. But the absence of social contagion doesn’t necessarily help to identify truth either. Meaning, we don’t always need to look in the shadows to uncover the truth. The majority may be perfectly aligned for good reason.

As I write that, I think it’s important to circle back to the original insight I spotlighted at the start of this article. “Seek knowledge that is universally accepted.” I realize now that upon wrestling with this very thought, it’s not the core of what I’m actually searching for. A more appropriate quest might be “Seek knowledge that withstands the strongest attacks?”

Essentially the question I’m asking is how do we identify ‘truth’ in the world. How do we know what is the right thing to do? What is a stance that is damn near irrefutable?

And frankly the more I write, the more ambiguous this tasks seems. For I find myself questioning if there even is a ‘truth’ to everything. As humans we like to box things into little digestible pieces to get answers. We love taking complicated problems and distilling it down to its core components to get an answer that is repeatable and predictable.

Arthur Brooks in his work highlights how the quest for clear, logical, and rule based outcomes is a very ‘left-brain’ activity. The brain doesn’t split responsibilities as neatly as “left = logic, right = emotion.” But there is a meaningful difference in how the hemispheres tend to process the world. Our right hemisphere is where we tend to process 'complex’ problems. Think relationships, purpose, identity, faith.
You don’t solve them. You navigate them.

Arthur’s work as of recently has been raising awareness for the need to treat these complex and complicated problems differently if we are to have any luck handling them reasonably. The fallacy Arthur preaches is that our modern world has become too accustomed to thinking that technology can solve every problem (left brain dominant). And if it hasn’t solved it, we must keep trying and iterating it until it does.

Technology is invaluable at giving us solutions to complicated problems, but it’s essentially a smoke and mirrors show when it comes to complex problems. We humans haven’t learned, or at least won’t accept, that technology can’t solve everything in our lives. Arthur advocates honoring the uniqueness of complex problems in the ways that we approach them.

As I reflect on the above paragraphs, I think I have arrived at another insight I didn’t have at the beginning of this article. I have been treating ‘truth’ as a ubiquitous concept that universally behaves the same way across all facets of life. But to Arthur’s credit, I’m realizing I may be trying to pack a square definition of truth into a round application of it.

It’s easy to see the ‘truth’ when it comes to complicated problems because pure logical application and deduction get’s you there. The progression of A+B to C is clear, and the first principle breakdown of components is well defined.

But so much of our lives are lived in the ‘complex’. And what maybe was the truth in yesterday’s relationship, isn’t a repeatable truth in tomorrow’s. Maybe we caveat all things complex with an asterisks that says ‘this is subjective’. The best advice is going to vary, just accept it. The truth is always elusive on these matters at hand.

Or is it?

Without consciously realizing it, this area of subjectivity was the primary driver of the search for ‘truth’ in my original statement I wrote before sleep. There are domains of life that are complex and ambiguous, yet there still seem to be stable patterns of truth about being human that show up again and again.

In another former article of mine “A Journey to Faith,” I briefly touched on the Biblical Series Jordan Peterson lectured about that opened my eyes to Christianity after years of being a stern atheist.

I am paraphrasing to some extent what he spoke about in his opening lecture but the main concept that stuck with me was he spoke of the bible as a collection of human stories, tales, and patterns on being that capture the fundamental essence of humans trying to understand what it means to be a human.

“It’s halting, partial, awkward, and contradictory, which is one of things that makes the book so complex. But I see, in that, the struggle of humanity to rise above its animal forebears and become conscious of what it means to be human.” -JP

A key point he mentioned that has stuck with me 5 years later, was his claim that ‘fictional work’ isn’t necessarily any less ‘true’ than non-fiction pieces. JP says that a great piece of fiction resonates with a wide variety of audiences precisely because we see ourselves in the story. We map our perception of reality and truth into the book/play/movie, and/or see it revealed to us as we take it in.

It’s not that we all have the exact same takeaway from the piece of fiction, but the fact that it universally resonates with so many indicates there is this shared alignment with living in this world. And I’m wondering if there is a way to fully capture what that alignment is. And why it exists.

I started reading the bible not out of a search for confirmation that Christianity is real, but as a wanna be sociologists/anthropologist digging into the essence of being human, and circle in on more sound daily living principles.

And what I found was quite compelling.

For those who know, I started writing on this website as I was trying to understand my own mental struggles and finding ways to holistically pursue a healthy life to ensure they didn’t exacerbate. And through my journey, I’ve learned and practiced many proven therapy interventions like Acceptance and Commitment, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Therapy etc. All of which were new to me in life as I never had a reason to engage with them in my younger years.

As I read the bible, I realized these same concepts and themes of human psychology were acknowledged thousands of years ago, they just didn’t have the fancy titles modern society has given them. That is, these insights about the human condition have been preserved long before we had clinical language for them.

Religion, faith, and belief aside, the bible contains an array of human observations that have stood the test of time.

I know I rewrote the core question I’m investigating in this article to be “Seek knowledge that withstands the strongest attacks.” It might be beneficial to elaborate on how I define harshest attacks.

Essentially I’m looking for themes, patterns, and strategies that have been replicated across a broad timeline, with consistent output, amongst a variety of domains. More specifically, advice and truth that I’m seeking would address problems and conundrums for humans all over the world and all throughout time. They would produce a consistency and repeatability across many complex situations, even if not perfectly every time. They don’t have to guarantee a favorable outcome necessarily, but other options would be susceptible to more scrutiny and fallacy. And the cherry on top is that the advice/truth would be applicable within various aspects of human life - physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually.

I want to give credit where credit is due. On a podcast with James Clear and Andrew Huberman, James mentions that your thoughts are downstream of the inputs you feed it. Arthur Brooks in another one of his newsletters was talking about his approach to his area of expertise, human well-being, by stating the following: I always read both inside and outside my field. For the science of well-being, I usually triangulate every topic by looking at an issue from the angles of philosophy or theology (to define the question), biology (to understand the mechanism), and social science (to find the evidence).

He’s looking across different layers to identify universal overlap. It’s not just biology, not just sociology, and not just philosophy he uses to derive theories and insights, it’s the combination of them all that brings validity to his observations and hypotheses.

As I’ve wrestled with these questions of advice and truth, I’ve been going back through notes I’ve taken on a plethora of content over the last few years.

The fact that so many great minds across various disciplines and throughout human history have identified common characteristics of human behavior and incentives makes me believe there are stable patterns of truths about humanity that exist as well.

Whether it be Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy writing about recurring truths of guilt, pride, redemption, and suffering in a manner that replicates ideas in the bible, even though they both had outspoken pushback to Christianity. Or Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics, who identified aspects of our psychology that reframe reality that almost completely align with modern day therapy approaches.

Scripture, philosophy, biology, and lived experience all seem to converge on a similar set of truths about being human.

The constant search for meaning and truth that we seek is clearly a complex issue, but I believe the fact that we keep rediscovering and acknowledging our patterns of being, means the complexity isn’t structureless. That is, we can’t hang our hat on the notion that life is inherently ambiguous and the truth is always susceptible to variability.

But that also doesn’t mean the answers we seek are clear. Rather it’s a reminder that the collective consciousness of homo sapiens has made great strides at providing insights into our very own being, and we must not assume we are somehow superior to our forefathers. That modernity has no additional leverage on revealing the truth.

Having awareness of whether the issue your facing is a complicated or a complex one can help you triage the approach you take to finding sound truth/advice. And then if you do conclude that it’s of a complex lineage, pressure test the advice/answers against other great thinkers and worldly observations to see if there is broader alignment to reality and other domains of life.

As the French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says: “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

I believe the truths we seek are the ones we often overlook because they aren’t flashy. They aren’t sexy. They aren’t what we want them to be.

We assume that with a complex problem the answer has to be equally complex. But that might not always be the case.

So I’ll leave you with this.

Is truth elusive?

Is truth sacred?

Is it innate?

Is it something we find by searching? Or do we stumble upon it?

Is it an approach? A framework from which to address complexity?

I know I’m still wrestling.

Cheers to the truth.

Every CEO is giving a pep talk to middle management about how AI is going to change their company for the better. And that everyone must get smart with AI.

AI is the future.

Yes, AI is great.

But lately I’ve been scratching my head over the net benefit it’s bringing to us. This isn’t an anti-AI rant. It’s a question about what gets lost when machines handle more of our expression. If output goes up, does human worth go down, or just get harder to see?

As more and more people use AI, more and more content and output will be AI generated.

For example, everyone says, I save so much time now that I don’t have to draft these emails. I have AI write them for me.

Well now most emails are produced from an AI assistant of some sort, which in a weird way makes them less scary. Once I accepted that most of my inbox was produced by some bot or LLM, the angst around sending and receiving professional emails dissipated. Gen Z might not remember a time when you spent an hour writing an email that ended up being three sentences long because you wanted it to be perfect, but those days existed.

It needed to carry the right tone, but get the message across strongly. Be warm, yet professional. Informative but not dry.

And when I received an email, I knew someone put time and energy into crafting it. When the notification hit that your manager just sent you an email, a butterfly emerged in your stomach wondering how you might have screwed something up or what extra work you just got nominated to do. And you read it in their voice.

Side note: I also have the thought often about how ridiculous email really is. Sure it’s a way to communicate. But humanity has become enslaved to the technology in a way that practically doesn’t make any sense. No one wants to read emails. No one wants to write emails. No one wants to receive an email. Why the fuck do we still use email then?

This phenomenon isn’t just for emails.

Job applications. College essays. Brainstorming ideas. Data analysis. They are all being outsourced to some AI platform or tool.

I get it. Life is finite and time is precious. Not many of us think that editing a Word document for the tenth job application is a great use of that time. I agree.

But as we outsource our lives to AI, we slowly lose our individuality.

Without getting too technical, these AI systems are trained on overlapping data at massive scale. The essence of the technology requires access to a lot of information in order to work as intended.

A data scientist on a podcast I listened to recently pointed out that many large language models draw from broadly similar corpora. Whether you use Grok, ChatGPT, or Gemini, the data are highly overlapping. The paradox is this. The better an AI system is, the more data it needs. But the world’s high-quality data is finite. As AI systems grow, their training sets inevitably overlap more and more.

So the output of these models tends to converge.

If every college applicant uses them to write their essays, how are they going to stand out? Sure, each person has a unique story and inputs. But the expression starts to blur together. Polished. Competent. Interchangeable.

The individuality that used to come from the writer’s mind now gets routed through near-identical black boxes.

When someone uses AI, it doesn’t impress you. You don’t think less of them, but there’s a subtle disappointment that they didn’t really do it.

A few months ago I read a newsletter by Oliver Burkeman that named a hidden truth I only felt before.

“The point of a good novel produced by a human isn’t that only a human could have produced it. It’s that a human did. There really was another thinking, emoting consciousness at the other end of the line. When you consume the work, you enter into a kind of relationship with them.”

That is why we appreciate content, work, art, and writing. We connect with the author. We acknowledge the work they did to produce it, the talent on display, and the distinct insights they bring to light.

The perfect sentence structure or grammar isn’t what moves us forward as a species. It’s the effort to reach it. The trying. That often matters more than the output itself.

Let’s say you hear a song on the radio. You’re jamming out. It directly captures the emotions you’re feeling in that moment.

Now, what if you found out it was generated by AI from a journal entry you wrote that morning. It took your thoughts and feelings, plugged them into its musical model, and curated a song for you to listen to three seconds later.

For me, that brings an air of disappointment. You are underwhelmed precisely because it was artificially generated. The technical competence is there. The connection is not.

This is not to say all AI content is bad, unnecessary, or redundant. It is to shed light on our true desires as humans. We want to connect, not just consume.

Don’t believe me? Public speaking is often cited as a top fear. We don’t want to be ostracized from the group. We want to fit in. We want to belong to other people.

Because of that desire for connectedness, I now find myself second-guessing whether the content, email, video, music, or artwork in front of me is human made or AI generated. It’s sad, but these days my initial inclination is that something creative in nature is AI produced. Or at least refined by AI.

And it’s bittersweet. You want to appreciate the thought or message that inspired the piece of content. But without the human effort and touch, it falls below expectations.

The irony is that while AI tools have raised the standard of output, they have diminished the impact it has.

As a result, AI is shifting what the market values. Diligence and first-draft polish get automated. Scarcer now are taste, judgment, curation, courage, lived experience, and trust.

We used to have copywriters who were experts of language at work. They could massage words and communications better than most people, and that was their profession. Now much of that quality is a prompt away and the cost is saved.

This concept is nothing new. AI is replacing a multitude of tasks because it can perform them better, quicker, and cheaper.

But there is another impact we don’t often name. It changes the comparative advantage of distinct qualities within professions.

Here is a fictitious scenario.

Say you have Lawyer A. Hard working, studious, attentive. Not particularly charismatic, but they never leave a page unread and come to meetings prepared.

Compare them with Lawyer B. Political, great with words. They tell a wonderful story and have that charm that swings a jury. They are not particularly studious, but they shine at big moments.

Who benefits more from the introduction of AI?

If AI can review documents and spit out key findings, Lawyer A loses their edge. Preparation is leveled. Performance is amplified. Maybe that’s fair. But a lot of us still feel like Lawyer A got the short end of the stick.

I am not here to say good or bad. I am saying the introduction of AI has dramatic impacts across industries and professions, even when workers are not directly replaced. It reshuffles which human traits carry weight.

One last thing I am still wrestling with. AI does not improve pure human productivity. It increases total output.

AI multiplies artifacts. It does not multiply attention. So we flood the zone with more emails, more decks, more videos, more everything, while the human capacity to notice and care stays fixed.

Is that good or bad?

Have we just cluttered the world even more at a time when we are already drowning in abundance?

What does humanity gain from the explosion of AI output?

I fear it is not as great as we expect. And I worry about unseen externalities and trade offs if we keep inflating the AI bubble before we slow down and understand our relationship to it as a species.

This is not me claiming that Terminator is coming to town instead of Santa this Christmas. I am asking what truly matters to us.

What do we gain from saving a few minutes typing an email if we lose the connection to the individual on the other end. A name. A voice. A person.

I can see an AI inflation landscape brewing where there is a continuous injection of AI produced content that distracts us, distorts truth, and distances us from one another.

Maybe the real danger isn’t AI becoming more human. It’s us becoming less.

For my whole adult life, I prided myself on being a morning person. In college, I signed up for early morning classes when everyone else wanted to sleep in. I was getting in miles at the track and reps in at the gym before the sun came up.

Routine was my best friend.

And for better or worse, that was my identity as well.

I liked that people were impressed by the fact that I could be productive in the earliest hours of the day. There’s a pride you take in being outside the norm—going against the grain of society, forging your own path where there always seems to be resistance.

And when you see success from this pattern of behavior, you naturally believe it’s the cause of that success.

It’s strikingly similar to Chris Williamson’s concept of the insecure overachiever:

“When faced with a challenge, your nature might be to worry and obsess and grip tightly. Because worrying is so common in every pursuit you attempt, your successes are seen as proof that worrying is a performance enhancer, and your failures are proof that you should have worried all along.”

You intrinsically tie your routine and habits to the outcomes you achieve.

I had straight A’s. Great numbers in the gym. Ran like the wind.

So of course, I assumed it must be the routine.

When Lyme disease hit, I lost my routine.

I lost my identity.

I no longer could rely on a clear mind by 8 a.m. to do deep theoretical or philosophical work. I wasn’t sure if a morning walk would wake me up or put me back in bed.

Life was unpredictable—not my cup of tea.

It forced me to sit still for the first time in years—and in that stillness, I stumbled upon a new idea about what it means to happen to life rather than let life happen to me.

As timing had it, I was listening to a podcast with entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant. He’s a unique thinker and paradoxically doesn’t structure his life in a manner one tends to associate with multimillionaire business owners.

Naval claimed he doesn’t have a schedule, and he doesn’t make commitments. If he never has to be at a specific place at a specific time, he’s embracing his full freedom—the freedom that was the natural order we were born into until the rigidity of the schooling system set in.

More importantly, Naval said on the podcast:

“Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately. The moment that curiosity arrives, lean into it.”

That struck me as profound, because for so much of my life I blocked out time to do certain work. Two hours for X, an afternoon window for Y.

I had embraced the notion that motivation is weak, and discipline is king—that you should never rely on motivation because it’s fleeting. It comes and goes with no rhyme or reason.

It was engrained in me that simply doing the work when you intended to would yield the results I had grown accustomed to.

But as I listened to Naval, I began to realize he wasn’t glorifying laziness or chaos—he was describing a kind of attunement. A trust in the signal of curiosity when it strikes.

Naval counters that approach by explaining that your best learning and work come when they’re derived from a place of curiosity. He asks the podcast host, “How much do you remember from school—when you were forced to learn on a timeline and rigid structure?”

I reflected on that. Sure, I’ve retained core pieces of my education over the years. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. But so much of the interaction with material was lost because it didn’t flow from a place of curiosity.

On the flip side, think of a hobby or passion you have. Think of the wealth of knowledge you’ve accumulated and retained on that subject. You most likely weren’t beating your head against the wall to learn or master the craft. Simply exploring and being willing to make mistakes left your brain ripe for neuroplasticity.

Andrew Huberman highlights that science directly backs this up. The growth-mindset approach—embracing errors, detaching your identity from performance, and treating learning as a process—is by far the superior way of learning.

He explains that curiosity engages the brain’s learning centers; it literally prepares the mind for neuroplasticity. A curious state isn’t passive—it’s an active readiness to absorb, connect, and integrate.

That inspiration and curiosity are synonymous with fun—and thus the spontaneity of those moments should be cherished and pursued. Your best work and productivity are downstream of freedom, not discipline.

At this point, I started to see that discipline and spontaneity aren’t opposites—they’re partners. Discipline creates the container, and curiosity fills it.

I’m not abandoning discipline—I’m redefining it. Discipline isn’t rigidity; it’s the commitment to show up when curiosity calls.

While battling Lyme disease, I noticed pockets of the day that felt normal—moments of clarity and energy that had been previously vacant.

My past self would’ve complained that these bursts weren’t coming in predictable waves or on a schedule I could optimize.

But the revelation Naval brought me shifted my perspective. Instead of seeing those unpredictable bursts as frustrating, I began to exploit them for as long as they lasted.

Some moments were only thirty minutes. Others lasted a few hours. During those times, I launched a whole new section of my website (“Thoughts I’m Wrestling With”), formed a detailed outline of the first fiction novel I want to write, designed a faith-based kids’ cartoon series, and created a self-ethos adventure guide called The Conscientious Cowboy.

None of these were crafted in a designated window of the day. Some sat idle for weeks—and then suddenly captivated my attention again.

I took away the pressure of having to execute and instead saw them as living, evolving journeys. I asked myself, “How can I enjoy this 10% more?” (Ode to Joe Hudson.) And by disassociating the stress of perfection or achievement from these projects, I naturally kept engaging.

Being on medical disability from my day job, I was obviously blessed with the freedom of time to engage in this lifestyle experiment. There weren’t many obligations or restrictions pulling me away from my flow. I could tackle whatever felt pressing or enticing that day.

That freedom made me more productive because I didn’t have a schedule constantly pulling me away from the work itself.

As much as I’d love to say I’ve fully adopted this radical spontaneity, I haven’t—because I’m still wrestling with it.

Part of me sees the world as a sphere of distractions constantly competing for our attention. That little device in your pocket is the prime example. We’re being slowly wired to confuse inspiration with impulse. Curiosity with compulsion.

How many times have you been lured by what appeared to be a shiny object—a new hobby, a new job, a new relationship—only to be left feeling hollow afterward?

You were inspired (falsely), you acted on it, but it didn’t yield the happiness that Naval references.

I also have this gut sense that fully embracing spontaneity can slowly coalesce into a path of least resistance—that I’ll fall into complacency.

Humans are lazy by nature. Catering to that disposition doesn’t seem like the avenue to producing something extraordinary.

And yet, I know God wants me to enjoy my life. Endless commitments and structure might signal that I’m idolizing something more than I idolize Him. He wants to see me in my humble form—completely outside of myself, living for others.

That’s where faith reenters the frame for me. God’s design for discipline isn’t about control—it’s about communion. The structure He gives isn’t meant to suffocate spontaneity but to protect it, to make room for the moments when curiosity becomes calling.

We also know scientifically that dopamine is released during the pursuit of a goal. If we sit around waiting for inspiration, it may never come. It’s in the commencement of a task that our brains release the chemicals that keep us engaged.

There’s also a wealth of research showing that depending on how you’re wired—morning lark or night owl—there are pockets in your circadian cycle where you’re physiologically primed for divergent, creative thinking, and others where you can take advantage of neuromodulators that enhance focus.

It seems foolish not to design your day with that information in mind.

You don’t have to color-code your Microsoft calendar to the nth degree, but having a general framework can yield its own kind of freedom.

So I’m torn.

Part of me sees the value in spontaneous exploration and learning, but another part fears the dangers that emerge when inspiration isn’t discerned—when we confuse curiosity with compulsion.

I know there is never a perfect time to start something. The world is inherently chaotic, and wishing it would settle just for me is like asking the Powerball to reveal the winning numbers. Inspiration can’t be my saving grace.

But I can’t brainwash myself into thinking structure is synonymous with success either. Improvement can’t be forced. Breakthroughs aren’t linear.

Maybe that’s the balance: structure reminds me I’m not God — that I need boundaries and rhythm to stay grounded — while spontaneity reminds me I’m alive.

Maybe the art of living isn’t choosing between structure or spontaneity—it’s learning when to surrender and when to steer.

As someone not extremely literate on the issue, I’ve never had strong feelings one way or another.

On one hand, I would see a cartel gang overtake a Colorado apartment complex at gunpoint on social media and think, “We need much tighter border security.”

But then I would drive down the road to the grocery store and see other immigrants (some probably illegal) peacefully living their American dream right alongside me, and I would say to myself, “America truly is the melting pot.”

If anything, I’ve held the belief that if an immigrant could travel from the depths and despairs of various parts within South America, and make it to the United States alive, they are one heck of an individual, and we should welcome them with open arms. They have gone through more adversity than many Americans will ever face in their entire lifetime.

Under that theory, we would assume everyone at the border perseveres through trials and tribulations to make it to our ‘free' soil, and thus has earned their entry into our country.

But we know that’s not the case. And we know that shouldn’t be the case either.

Which is where I started to intellectually spar with my friend a bit more. Not because I had a point to prove, but rather was trying to explore where my own beliefs truly lay.

To my surprise, my friend listed off various statistics that contradicted my prior immigration assumptions.

For starters, immigrants commit fewer crimes and face lower incarceration rates than U.S.-born individuals. And from a community standpoint, higher immigration levels tend to coincide with lower overall crime rates. Many fear deportation and thus are on their best behavior to not give authority a reason to question them.

There is also something known as the Immigrant Paradox: a pattern where first-generation immigrants often outperform both U.S.-born individuals and later immigrant generations in education, health, and behavior—even though they may face significant socio-economic challenges.

Despite those challenges, immigrants are also less likely than native-born citizens to be crime victims—and more likely to report crimes when they occur.

I’m sure many of you reading this now just learned something new.

We often falsely attribute the one-off anecdotal news story as the norm. Or watch a video on YouTube and feel enriched with knowledge that inflates our actual understanding of an issue. Or we rely on our own experience (and biases) to conjecture our opinion of truth on matters at hand—and wonder how others could possibly disagree with us (scratches head).

This is the broader tension I keep circling: stories versus statistics.

When our own story is attached—or we read a story—we are psychologically wired to feel that more than simply seeing numbers on a page. Stories make us feel something data never will.

Joseph Stalin is often quoted as saying: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

There’s a reason charities like Save the Children pair you up with a specific child to sponsor. When you relate, you care more. That’s not cynicism—it’s human wiring.

But at what point do we need to put our heart in check?

Every human walking this earth has experienced the great war between the heart and the mind. Emotion and reason.

Stoics like Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius leaned into the logical end of the spectrum. They disciplined emotions under rational control, seeing unchecked feeling as a source of suffering. Aristotle and Plato also placed reason above passion, though without suppressing emotion entirely.

On the contrary, Romantics like Rousseau, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron rebelled against rationalism. They believed intuition, imagination, and emotional authenticity revealed truth more deeply than cold logic ever could. Nietzsche distrusted pure rationalism altogether, celebrating passion, will, and instinct as life-affirming.

So where does that leave us?

The problem is, humans are irrational. Our instincts aren’t always optimal or right. Sure, we have the saying “trust your gut,” but what exactly is that gut feeling giving us? Is it wisdom—or just old wiring reacting to fear, hunger, or habit?

On one hand, instincts can mislead us—they’re colored by bias and outdated evolutionary shortcuts. On the other hand, neuroscience shows that the gut-brain axis is a legitimate source of information: a way the body flags patterns and risks before the conscious mind can.

Which means we even face the added challenge of knowing when not to trust our gut. When is the body picking up on something real—and when is it deceiving us?

This same tension between gut and data shows up outside politics and philosophy—even in sports.

I love investigating the famous/infamous (depending on who you were rooting for) decision of the Seattle Seahawks to attempt a pass play on second down, one yard from the end zone, instead of running with the best running back at the time, Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch.

For those who remember, the New England Patriots executed a perfect jam at the line, allowing Malcolm Butler to jump the route and make the game-winning interception on Russell Wilson.

Richard Sherman’s face after seeing the outcome said what we were all thinking:
“Why didn’t you just run it with Marshawn Lynch?”

But when you strip away hindsight bias, the numbers actually favored Seattle’s infamous call. Lynch had only converted about 45 percent of his carries from the one-yard line over the previous five seasons—well below league average. By contrast, passing from the one was both common and remarkably safe: that entire season, quarterbacks had attempted 109 passes from the one-yard line without a single interception, and across a decade only five had ever been picked off in that spot.

On top of that, the clock and timeout situation made a pass on second down strategically cleaner, leaving room for two potential rushes if it failed. In other words, Seattle’s choice wasn’t reckless—it was a data-driven, situationally sound decision that just happened to collide with one of the most improbable defensive plays in Super Bowl history.

Authors David Henderson and Charley Hooper, in their book Making Great Decisions in Business and Life, investigate this exact play. Their reflection is where we can all take away some insight.

Here’s the bigger point I want to make and it applies whether the decision is by a football coach in a big game or you in your big game called life.

The point is this: it’s important to distinguish between decisions and outcomes. We all know why there is so much criticism of Pete Carroll: because his play decision for that second down led to a bad outcome—that doesn’t mean it was a bad decision.

A good decision is one you would choose again, even if it occasionally produces a bad outcome. A bad decision can also lead to a lucky outcome. That distinction matters.

But life isn’t always as forgiving as sports. The Super Bowl title only gets crowned once. A single bad outcome can shape the rest of your life.

So part of me thinks not all decisions are created equal. In principle, Pete Carroll has a defensible case, and had the pass worked, we’d probably never have this debate. But something in my gut still tells me the better option was to run with Marshawn Lynch. I can’t explain it in words—and neither can most football fans. It’s just the (biased) fact.

The decision/outcome matrix is useful for limiting regret. When bad outcomes strike, if we can say we’d make the same choice again given the circumstances, then we don’t cannibalize our own confidence. But that doesn’t erase the reality that a single play, or a single choice, can define everything.

TLDR:

Humans have consciousness. That’s why we can recognize our friend by the way they walk faster than any AI could. It separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom—and from our soon-to-be computer companions. That consciousness is an asset in decision-making.

But it’s also fundamentally biased and limited. Ignoring data that tells a fuller story is just as dangerous as ignoring the gut instincts honed by a lifetime of embodied experience.

The art of decision-making isn’t in choosing one over the other. It’s in learning when to trust each—and living with the tension that you may never get it perfectly right.

Maybe the better question isn’t whether to go with your gut or double down on data—but how to keep making decisions you’d stand by, even when the outcome isn’t what you hoped for.

Still Wrestling.

Admittedly, I get more articles sent to my email than I care to read. I’ve been trying to employ Oliver Burkeman’s tip from a recent newsletter: read in the moment or delete the article. I have a tendency to see an enticing title and tell myself I’ll read it when I have time to “really” engage with it — but that’s just another form of avoidance. Or, as Steven Pressfield would put it, letting resistance win.

Anyway, the title that recently came through my Outlook inbox was:
“Social Media Shortens Your Life. Here’s How to Get Time Back.”

Immediately, I was drawn to the premise. Like anyone else, I struggle to find balance in my use of social media. I wasn’t looking for a silver bullet or some hack to forge unwavering discipline against temptation — I was just curious where the author was going to take the article.

The writer, Gurwinder Bhogal, outlined how apps like TikTok and Instagram warp our perception of time. Ironically, he touched on many of the same scientific principles about memory formation and the passage of time that I explored in Is Life Short or Long?

Bhogal says the sinister thing about social media is that it speeds up your sense of time — both in the moment and in retrospect — by simultaneously impairing your awareness of the present and your memory of the past.

Try to remember the last few posts you scrolled past.
You don’t.
I don’t either.
We got bamboozled.
Yet we keep going back for more.

The Lethe Effect

Theoretically, a social media feed should dilate time. It selects for content that’s exciting, outrageous, or scary — content that, by all logic, should heighten awareness and memory. But that’s not what happens.

Why?

Because when every post is alarming, your brain desensitizes. It starts to interpret outrage and novelty as routine. And routine — being passive and unmemorable — speeds up time.

Bhogal quoted Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president, who once admitted:

“The thought process that went into building these applications was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’”

Read that again.

In the digital economy, attention is the most valuable currency. I don’t care how convincing the bitcoiners are — the human nervous system trumps its value.

It struck me while reading this: maybe we’ve given too much freedom to tech companies — or, as some now call them, “attention engineers.”

When Clever Turns Predatory

This is a touchy subject. At face value, I’m advocating for regulation, which to some ears sounds like a slippery slope toward communism.

But here’s the real question:
What is the cost of letting ingenuity go too far?

Bhogal referenced the work of Bill Friedman, a casino manager who meticulously studied human behavior in order to design disorienting casino layouts. It’s called the Gruen effect — the moment a shopper forgets what they originally came for and starts aimlessly wandering and impulse-buying.

Grocery stores do this too. That’s why the essentials — milk, bread, eggs — are in the back. You’re forced to walk the full distance and pass distractions along the way.

The optimization of the Gruen effect happens when space is designed to disorient. Minimal sharp turns (which jolt awareness). No clear corners, no defined start or end.

Sound familiar?

Social media sites are designed in a very similar way.

Links are placed where your thumbs already go. Notifications pull you into a feed before you ever reach the message you opened the app to read. The goal is to alienate you from your own intentions — so you lose track of where you were, and when you were.

As Bhogal writes:

“What makes social media even more disorienting than a casino is that our feeds are not just mazes in space, but also in time.”

Social platforms exploit a dozen other tricks. They leverage our own behavior against us — and to their benefit. Our attention, time perception, and even our offline awareness are under siege.

And it’s not without consequence.

Sleep performance is trending down. Depression and anxiety are on the rise. Some researchers have even linked disrupted time-perception — potentially exacerbated by constant screen use — to earlier puberty onset in children.

Screen time also correlates with accelerated aging. Muscle loss. Bone density decline. Other metabolic issues.

Social Media Shortens Life — Literally

Which is the ultimate point of Bhogal’s piece:
Social media doesn’t just waste time — it compresses and degrades it.

So I return to my original question:

At what point do we admit the costs of these technologies outweigh the benefits?

In A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying introduce a term I think about often: Sucker’s Folly — the mistaken belief that just because something works immediately, it must be good overall.

But the “folly” is this:
The hidden costs show up later.
Sometimes in ways we couldn’t predict, and never imagined.

They use the automobile as an example. Cars solved transportation brilliantly. But decades later, we started seeing the real cost — greenhouse emissions, climate impacts, auto fatalities.

We’re evolutionarily wired to trust short-term payoffs because, in the ancestral world, long-term harms were rare. But modern technologies have long-tail risks — and we keep falling for them.

That’s why Bret and Heather argue that we need caution in our principles, and humility in our innovations.

The Folly of Social Media

Maybe now we’re finally seeing the folly.

Social media solved the problem of information flow. But it ruined authentic connection.
And now we’re seeing it degrade the very fabric of our lives.

Worse still — I’d argue that the “attention engineers” continue exploiting their capabilities, even with growing public awareness of the consequences.

So I ask, out of genuine curiosity:

Where is the line between clever behavioral design and outright manipulative harm?

Why do we continue giving innovators a pardon from the chaos they create?

A New Hippocratic Oath?

It’s not a one-to-one comparison, but I can’t help thinking of the Hippocratic Oath — the ancient physician’s pledge to prioritize patient care and do no harm.

Should we institute something similar across the tech sector?

This isn’t about punishing ingenuity — it’s about governing practices that systematically exploit cognitive vulnerabilities.

We already regulate nicotine, gambling, and alcohol — products that hijack human biology. Why should attention-harvesting design be exempt just because it’s clever?

As Uncle Ben told Peter Parker:

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

So should we hold “attention engineers” accountable for their abuse of power?

What constitutes abuse?
What’s fair?
What’s legal?
What’s ethical?

I don’t have a final answer.

But I do believe this:

We scroll, we age, we forget — and the architects keep building the maze.

Guardrails must be built before the system spins too far out of control.

Then again… who’s to say we aren’t already there?

Sofia’s character takes a gap year, after finishing her finance degree at Cornell, to study her lifelong passion — Victorian poetry — at Oxford University. Of course, the crux of the film is the growing romantic tension between the two leads. Hollywood has endless ways of creating clever hooks and friction that make you think every great love should start that way.

Early on, she attends her first poetry class, and I caught myself thinking, One’s life must be more than adequately sustainable to have the time and money to study poetry. Not with snobby disdain, but as a reflection on how far society has evolved.

Economics teaches that farming allowed early civilizations to produce surpluses, freeing people to do more than hunt and gather. That shift made specialization — and eventually the study of the leisure creations of past generations — possible.

Sofia’s character is the daughter of U.S. immigrants who worked tirelessly for her to have this chance. So when she clashes with a young grad-student professor radiating privilege, she correctly guesses his wealthy upbringing smoothed his path — as if to say, You know nothing about the realities of life, and your interpretation of poetry is shaped by that.

I’ll admit — that confirmed my earlier thought: It must be nice to have the luxury of teaching your interpretations of poems for a living.

Then comes the plot twist: he’s undergoing treatments for a rare, incurable cancer.

On a dime, past resentments shift into empathy.

This reminded me of a thought experiment I’ve heard on podcasts:

If given the choice to be 80 years old and a billionaire, or 20 years old and broke, almost everyone picks the latter.

We instinctively value time over money, and health over materialism.

Bill Perkins, author of Die with Zero, recapped the impact the book Your Money or Your Time had on his understanding of the utility of money over time. One of the tools it preaches is to calculate your hourly wage after tax and began analyzing costs of the world not in terms of money, but in terms of your time. Bill said this really helped him get in touch with his values. Money was no longer this arbitrary medium of exchange, it was a direct connection to the person he was.

When you align with your values, you clarify the life you want — how you spend your days, the goals you pursue, the masterpiece you’re building.

(Full disclosure: there are flaws to viewing the world purely in hours-for-money, but it’s a useful lens for understanding the trade-offs you’re making.)

Most people drift into working for money on autopilot, assuming freedom will come later. Perkins — and others — warn that’s a dangerous gamble: you’re exchanging youth and health for wealth. It’s like running a marathon on a treadmill. You cover the distance, but the experience is miserable.

Run that marathon outside instead, and you’ll still hit 26.2 miles — but with fresh air, unexpected conversations, and maybe a new way of seeing the world.

Too many of us treat life like the treadmill version — heads down in our youth, expecting a grand payout later — only to find the equation of health, time, and wealth has shifted when we get to ‘later’.

Naval Ravikant puts it succinctly:

“When you're young, you have time. You have health, but you have no money. When you're middle‑aged, you have money and you have health, but you have no time. When you're old, you have money and you have time, but you have no health… By the time people realize they have enough money, they’ve lost their time and their health.”

Time is a finite commodity, and bartering it is a high-risk game.

My Oxford Year leans into the idea that life should be lived now — to “eat cake every chance you get.”

The first poem the professor assigns is by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.”

A well-lived life might come at a cost, but nothing is permanent. Our passions, loves, and lives are fleeting — which may be exactly why we should embrace them fully.

It’s easy to get caught up in longevity-optimization culture: avoid cigarettes, track sleep, guard against dementia. This advice isn’t wrong — but Millay would argue that sometimes the richest moments come when you throw caution to the wind. Always preparing for tomorrow means you never live in today.

Maybe you’re a soldier in a foxhole under artillery fire. Your buddy offers you a cigarette — not to take the edge off, but in acknowledgment of the absurdity of life. Do you calculate the seven days it might shave off your life, or think, The hell with it — this is a story I’ll carry for whatever life I have left?

The professor tells his students, “Life has a way of derailing the best-laid plans,” and “The best bits of life are often the messiest.” A cancer diagnosis sharpens that lens of course, but the film invites the viewer to consider it without waiting for tragedy.

But here is where I see another side to the coin.: scientifically speaking, life is the longest thing you’ll ever experience. We’ve absorbed the idea that we must make every year count — which creates a subtle pressure to always be doing something worthwhile.

I know, because I’ve believed it. I trace it partly to my college reading habits. I devoured military autobiographies that condensed decades of someone’s life into a few hundred pages. Highs and lows came rapid-fire: training, missions, achievements. You finish thinking, They lived more lives than I ever will.

What those books don’t show are the slow months: six-month rehabs, mundane work, and the quiet in-between. Those moments don’t sell. So we compare our balanced mix of action and rest to their highlight reel and conclude we’re behind.

George Leonard, in writing about mastery, reframed this for me. Progress, he said, is mostly plateaus — long stretches with no visible improvement, punctuated by brief surges. Eventually, he learned to welcome plateaus as the surest sign another breakthrough was coming.

Life is like that. The “boring” stretches can be the most fertile.

Author Oliver Burkeman helped me shift my mindset from serial productivity to something with more grace — and, frankly, more oxygen. Not because I was burning out, but because science and experience both show that rest isn’t the opposite of productivity; it’s the catalyst.

Efficiency isn’t the same as effectiveness. You can be hyper-efficient and simply make room to cram in more work — which leaves you with less of the life you actually want. True productivity is producing the life you’d be proud to live.

This is where “doing nothing” comes in. It’s not wasted time — it’s the mental equivalent of recovery days in training. In downtime, your brain’s default mode network quietly stitches together ideas, makes unexpected connections, and solves problems in ways you can’t force. That’s why the best ideas come in the shower, walking the dog, or staring out the window.

Burkeman warns that if you only rest when “everything is done,” you’ll never rest — because the “everything” list is infinite. Rest has to be scheduled, guarded, and defended — not as indulgence, but as infrastructure. The irony is, respecting that space makes you far more effective.

Dr. Peter Attia takes a similar stance on the physical side of life. He champions lifestyle choices that maximize healthspan — not just lifespan. Healthspan is the stretch of life where you remain physically capable, mentally sharp, and free from chronic disease, so you can keep doing what you love late into life. It’s living in a way that lets you extract what you want from the world for as long as possible — without the world dictating what you can and can’t do.

This is all to say, life is both long and short. Long enough to spend years refining your craft, resting on plateaus, and savoring unhurried days. Short enough that tomorrow isn’t promised. The challenge — and the privilege — is to live in the overlap: to protect your healthspan so you can keep doing what you love, to defend your downtime so you can keep loving what you do, and to seize the small, messy, cake-filled moments that give the whole thing meaning.

This shows up in friendships, family ties, and romantic relationships alike. So often, we have this desire to prove to people how unbalanced the scoreboard is, and why we’re choosing a different path forward — tallying how many more points we have than the other person.

Say you want to break ties from a family member. It’s very enticing to list off A through Z all the reasons why you’re ‘in the right’ for deciding that course of action. Or a friendship seems to be growing apart, despite your consistent attempts to rekindle and nurture a connection that once was. Or a love you once cherished feels like a burden that continuously wears you down, instead of building you up.

We want to unroll the cartoon scroll of reasons we’re justified for the big decision we are making. There’s a rush of adrenaline and dopamine to being right.

But Mark points out that the validation we are seeking by highlighting a skewed scoreboard, should really be our realization that things have been unhealthy for a long time—that the foundation may have been off from the very beginning

I think it’s important to note here, unhealthy doesn’t have to be such a negative connotation. We are naturally loss-averse, we hate losing more than we like winning. To see something go away hurts us humans more than gaining that same thing. Losing friends, family, lovers is never easy—but there is a misperception that loss is always bad.

Loss is a part of life. It’s a part of maturity. It’s a constant reminder that our time is finite in this world.

Just remember: loss can leave a void — but it can also create space for something unexpected to grow.

Wildfires may look like devastation, but they often clear the way for stronger, more resilient life to emerge.

As Mark was talking about the concept of the scoreboard, I began investigating a statement I have routinely made— “I will forgive, but I won’t forget.”

My justification has always been that our brains are data collecting machines. It’s foolish of us to discard data that has important information on it. We must remember who has hurt us in order to avoid being hurt in the future. We’re biologically wired to be threat-conscious—to protect ourselves from future harm.

But the dilemma my brain is now facing is such—part of me feels that by refusing to forget a past offense, I may be keeping a relational scoreboard with that individual. In which case I’m tempted to ask myself is there something deeper that remains unaddressed that I’m neglecting.

Yet the other part of me feels that becoming a pacifist to the harm and injustices done against you will lead to others taking advantage of you, or exploiting your naturally good demeanor toward mankind for malevolent purposes.

Lewis Smedes in his book Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve, teaches that the act of forgiving is not first about the other person — it’s about liberating yourself from the corrosive power of bitterness, resentment, and vengeance.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Smedes makes it clear though that forgiveness doesn’t mean wiping your memory clean—it’s not amnesia. Forgiveness is a moral choice to release someone from your personal condemnation, even if the memory remains. In other words, we can still store the data of the injustice on our hard drive, but we alter the impact it has on our coding.

“You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.”

Forgiveness is NOT saying what happened was okay. Forgiveness is NOT a full reconciliation. Forgiveness is NOT trusting that person again. It’s a way to release your anger without reentering vulnerability.

“Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply.”

So if I was at dinner with Smedes tonight and I asked him “Am I really forgiving someone if I say I forgive, but keep the memory?” I think his answer would be yes, as long as that memory isn’t activating resentment or fueling personal revenge of some sort. You don’t want that data hijacking your direction — quietly rewriting your story while you think you’re in control.

Remembering serves you—for safety, wisdom, and boundaries. Forgiveness serves you too—by bringing peace, healing, and personal freedom.

Is there a way to keep the data but not keep the resentment?

As I was researching Smedes’ work some more, it dawned on me that Viktor Frankl’s powerful story, Man’s Search for Meaning would be another wonderful layer of insights to pull into this thought entanglement.

For context, Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor and founder of logotherapy—a school of psychological thought rooted in the idea that the primary human drive is not pleasure or power, but meaning. In 1942, Frankl, his pregnant wife, parents, and brother were all deported to concentration camps. Only Frankl would survive the atrocities. Upon liberation he wrote Man’s Search for Meaning in nine short days.

The core beliefs of his message can be summed up in these three quotes:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Though Frankl never explicitly talked about forgiving the Nazis or having compassion for the German people, he modeled how to find dignity, agency, and moral clarity in the face of dehumanization.

For Frankl, forgiveness was not so much about letting someone off the hook, but refusing to let your identity be anchored to the harms and injustices done against you. This very much echoes Smedes take on forgiveness as a way to set the prisoner free— the prisoner being you.

Throughout all his work, Frankl’s lack of bitterness towards those that took his whole world away from him proves that past pain doesn’t need to dictate your default programming. Don’t dwell in the identity of a victim. Instead, step into that space between stimulus and response and explore how you really want that event to define you.

C.S. Lewis in multiple pieces of his work highlights the difficulty in forgiveness. He openly admits that forgiveness was one of the hardest commands Jesus gave because it asks so much of the heart.

Lewis draws a line in the sand though between excusing and forgiving. Excusing is turning a blind eye or convincing yourself that whatever happened wasn’t really that bad. Forgiveness is looking at the harm squarely, acknowledging it for its impact on you, but choosing to not hold it over the perpetrator’s head forever.

Lewis also believes forgiveness and justice can coexist. You can forgive someone in your heart, but still carry out a punishment for their action. The distinction being that the punishment is not retaliatory in nature or done in spite, but to oppose the action in question.

He makes an important note that forgiveness is not a feeling, but a discipline that has to be practiced constantly. One day we may feel no resentment towards a past wrongdoing, and the next totally infuriated. Lewis says that doesn’t mean you haven’t forgiven the initial harm, but rather you are still in the process of healing.

So maybe I shouldn’t view the past wrongdoings, or my rightdoings as a scoreboard comparison, but as saline drip in an I.V. bag that is helping to heal some part of my soul. If I haven’t ‘forgotten’ it yet, it just means I have more space to interpret and learn from it. Some I.V. bags will be bigger than others.

What does the King of Kings have to say?

As I read the bible for the first time last year, the battleground of nuance seemed to erupt and complicate so many of the core Christian life lessons—forgiveness being one of them.

On one hand Jesus explains that it’s the sin that must be named, not the sinner. In John 8:3-11 Jesus says:

“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
And then to the woman:
“Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

In Proverbs 21:3 it says:

“To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.”

The takeaway being forgiveness doesn’t mean enabling evil—it means releasing the desire to retaliate. That’s God’s job.

And in Luke 23:34, when Jesus is being crucified, Jesus says:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

He shows that there is a separation between their value as people and the wrongdoing they commit.

And in Matthew 5:44 Jesus says:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Jesus consistently called His followers to a radical standard of forgiveness. Not by denying sin — but by refusing to let sin define the person. Whether it was a crucifixion squad, an adulterous woman, or a corrupt tax collector, Jesus always saw the soul beneath the stain. He never excused sin — but He never weaponized it either.

But Jesus wasn’t a pacifist.

Jesus Himself flipped tables. He publicly called out the religious manipulators for their hypocrisy, legalism, and abuse of spiritual power.

In Matthew 10:34 Jesus says:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

The word sword here is a metaphor for ‘truth’. Truth would divide families, cultures and hearts. It wasn’t a utopian glue to bring about universal happiness.

As you can see, it’s a tough subject to navigate. All the individuals I referenced above (maybe not Jesus) really struggled with forgiveness. Not because they didn’t understand it — but because, like a muscle, it needs to be flexed regularly or it starts to atrophy.

Maybe the presence of a scoreboard is my psyche’s metaphor for vengeance — or at least retribution. And when that voice in my head reminds me of the score, maybe it’s just an invitation to revisit forgiveness.

Maybe the scoreboard isn’t there to measure others — but to reveal the kind of person I want to be, regardless of how the numbers add up.

Does the world even care about my scoreboard? Or is it just me?

Either way, I hope the path I take leads to peace. And if it doesn’t… well, I’ll have to forgive myself too.

Almost a decade ago, I watched a video clip on YouTube with Katrin Davidsdottir, a two-time CrossFit world champion. The interviewer asked what her perfect day looked like. Her response?

"A day where I’m not rushed."

I didn’t write it down or bookmark the clip, but I can still hear her saying it like it was yesterday. Probably because I resonated with it so deeply.

But why? No one really enjoys the feeling of being rushed (even procrastinators), but I’d never heard it framed as something to avoid—not just an inconvenience, but a root cause of other negative emotions and experiences.

Yesterday, I was reading a Modern Wisdom newsletter where Chris Williamson wrote about time: how some days feel like years, and some years feel like days. It captured a subtle reality of adulthood—the novelty of our youth gives way to routine, structure, and repetition. Our brains prefer it that way. It conserves energy.

Imagine if every day were completely different. Your route to work changed constantly. Your breakfast varied dramatically. New faces greeted you at the gym every class.

That probably triggers anxiety in a few readers—and understandably so. Humans are creatures of habit. We need some novelty, but not too much. Chaos is no way to live, no matter how thrilling it might seem.

Chris pointed out that routines compress time in our minds. When our days follow familiar patterns, the brain essentially goes on autopilot to conserve RAM. There’s nothing novel to encode, so we don’t remember much.

As we get older, days seem to fly by not because they’re short, but because they’re forgettable.

On the flip side, we all remember our youth vividly. Vacations. New classrooms. Amusement parks. The novelty triggered more cortical activity, which formed distinct memories.

This ties into the Holiday Paradox: time flies when you're having fun, but it feels long in retrospect. And the inverse is true—boredom crawls in the moment but disappears from memory.

Which leads to this insight: the more memories you generate, the longer time feels in hindsight. Our remembered time expands in proportion to novelty.

So what does memory have to do with being rushed?

At 2 a.m. last night, I scribbled this thought in a notebook: "Being rushed = being outcome-oriented."

When you’re focused on outcomes, you become a passenger in the present. You only "arrive" when you hit the milestone—or when you fail. The process itself becomes forgettable. Your brain has no reason to record it.

(Quick note: I’m not talking about emergency situations. I’m talking about the cultural pace we’ve normalized. The always-on, go-go-go mode that tells us we’ll be left behind if we slow down.)

Whenever I feel rushed, it’s usually because I’m trying to please someone else—or accomplish something I’ve deemed critical. But that urgency is self-created.

If I had $1 billion in my bank account, would that last-minute assignment from my boss feel as critical? Probably not.

If I’m late to coffee, the coffee won’t taste worse. I’m just worried about what the other person will think.

I even feel rushed typing prompts into ChatGPT. I’m so eager for an answer that I barely think through the question. As if sending it 10 seconds sooner will save the world. How ridiculous, Mitch.

In doing that, I skip the very activity where the value lies. Reading and writing are where insight happens—not when you click "send."

Rushing cheats us out of reflection. It’s a scarcity mindset. It puts more value on others' expectations than on your own presence.

When I look back, almost nothing I rushed actually needed to be rushed. The urgency was usually a fallacy—an illusion I mistook for reality.

Have you ever looked back and thought, “Good thing I rushed that decision”? Probably not. If anything, those are the memories we don’t have—because the brain didn’t deem the process meaningful enough to store.

(Some might argue: "I have to rush. I have bills to pay and a boss to please." And yes, I get that. But we all chose the jobs we’re in. I’m not saying it’s easy to change, but the first step is ownership. You chose your current path. That means you can choose differently.)

Arthur Brooks, a professor at Harvard, has a formula for satisfaction:

So here’s a question: can you really feel rushed for something you already have?

Maybe there’s an exception, but I can’t think of one.

What we have is often more abundant than we realize. What we want, on the other hand, is adjustable. We can shrink that denominator through self-reflection and alignment. I’m not saying zero wants—but endless wanting guarantees dissatisfaction.

So next time you feel rushed, pause and ask: “What am I chasing? What do I already have?”

Sometimes the rush is subtle. Like when I fold laundry fast just to "earn" my relaxation. Or when I try to clear my to-do list so I can finally enjoy the day. But if I treat life like a series of hurdles to get past, I never arrive anywhere worth being.

Joe Hudson has a beautiful reframe: “Enjoyment isn’t what you’re doing—it’s how you’re doing it.” His go-to question is, “How can I enjoy this moment 10% more?”

That mindset anchors me in the present. It pulls me out of performance mode and into participation.

So that’s my goal: to catch myself when I feel rushed, name the driver, and ask—do I keep going, or do I slow down?

I don’t want to eliminate urgency. But I want the kind that creates stories worth remembering.

Till next time.

“God is well aware of what a wretched machine you are trying to drive, and asks only that you keep on doing the best you can. Christianity…is humane, but not easy. It asks us to recognize that the great religious struggle is not fought on a spectacular battleground, but within the ordinary human heart, when every morning we wake up and feel the pressures of the day crowding in on us, and we must decide what sort of immortals we wish to be.” – C.S. Lewis

Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, is one of my all-time favorite books. It’s a great encapsulation of human reflection, questioning, and longing that I’ve struggled to find in other literature. I may be biased because I agree with many of Lewis’s arguments in favor of a Christian worldview, but anyone with curiosity will appreciate the tussle that is human existence throughout the book.

As a foundational claim, Lewis outlines his views on “The Laws of Human Nature and the Moral Law”—the phenomena of morals and righteous behavior among mankind. He recognizes that civilizations around the world have various guardrails and standards for right and wrong, but by and large, humans tend to have this innate understanding of what one ‘ought to do’ and an eye for fairness.

These ‘Laws’ govern our behavior and interpretation of others’ actions as we navigate life.

Yet, even while agreeing with Lewis, I've started to wonder: do we truly share one universal moral compass, or are there deeper variations than we acknowledge?

Jordan Peterson explains in one of his lectures that the most compelling evidence for God isn’t external miracles or cosmological arguments—but the “argument by conscience.” He sees our conscience—our inner voice asking, “Is this right?” or “Am I doing the right thing?”—as God speaking to us directly, aligning us with the deeper structure of reality.

Regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, having the humility to sit with your thoughts and question where you can be a better person activates the inner voice of God—your conscience. And we all invariably know the parts of our lives that could use improvement.

In another lecture, Peterson posits that there is no true success without moral success. If you excel in business, school, or sports, but employ nefarious methods, your conscience keeps the real score—a score you'll never outrun, no matter how outwardly successful you appear.

Matthew McConaughey, in his recent Lyrics of Living newsletter, had wonderful insights on selfishness. Society typically attaches a negative connotation to selfishness, but McConaughey argues that true selfishness—as it pertains to self-service—means serving ourselves without neglecting our neighbors. Such behavior provides long-term ROI to both neighbors and the individual performing the ‘selfish’ act.

“If I lie, cheat, and steal to get what I want or avoid inconvenience today, am I truly being selfish? It may look like it in the short run, but in the long run? I don’t think so. Think of the stress I’d cause myself for the rest of my life every time I walk out the door, go to a function, or hear my doorbell ring—all the burned bridges, all the people I screwed over, the anxiety I’d endure would make my life feel like a prison. Fundamentally, there’s NOTHING selfish about that.” – Matthew McConaughey

For many years, I believed my conscience kept score. If I did something selfish that hurt others or felt morally inferior, I’d regret it deeply. Naturally, when I read Lewis, listened to Peterson, and reflected on McConaughey’s insights, they all reinforced this perspective.

However, I've grown curious about individuals who seemingly don't possess a conscience in the way we typically assume humans do. Could it be these individuals, intellects, and philosophers make assumptions due to their own conscientiousness—their discipline, responsibility, and reliability—that lead them to assume everyone naturally shares their sense of conscience? Perhaps this introduces a subtle bias.

Conscientiousness—the trait associated with orderliness, responsibility, and discipline—can easily be confused with moral conscience, though they aren’t identical. Someone can be highly conscientious but still have a distorted or unconventional moral framework.

Consider this morally ambiguous scenario:

You've been working two jobs, desperately saving money so your child can attend college and live a better life. Unexpectedly, you receive an insider trading tip linked to your work that would enable you to pay your child's tuition within a year.

You rationalize: “It’s a capitalist economy. Chances of the IRS or SEC catching me are slim. And if high-powered figures in politics and finance routinely skirt the system, why shouldn’t an average joe like me capitalize on this opportunity?”

If you adopt Peterson’s perspective, every dime earned would become a thorn of torment, reminding you of your moral deviation. Each joyful college call from your child would stir guilt, knowing their opportunity arose from an illegal act.

Yet, I can also envision someone genuinely proud of their decision, joyfully FaceTiming their child each weekend without guilt. Their conscience doesn’t perceive that insider trading as burdensome at all.

An even more extreme and troubling example—one I’ve struggled to understand—is terrorism. Some terrorists use their own families as human shields or celebrate mass violence. These actions aren't mere deviations—they’re inversions of universally human instincts to protect family and community. Are these individuals genuinely devoid of conscience, or do they operate within a radically different moral framework, one we struggle even to comprehend?

Douglas Murray, in a conversation with Lex Fridman, shared how a friend who grew up in pre-revolutionary Iran once explained that it’s especially hard for Westerners—particularly Americans—to truly grasp ideological or religious fanaticism. The ‘death cult’ mindset that some of these individuals have, and the lasting ramifications that unfold when such individuals come to power

I’m probably a victim of that negligence mindset/lack of awareness since I’ve never truly studied or visited the middle east.

Thousands of such individuals walk the earth with these starkly different moral compasses. While they may or may not fit a psychological diagnosis like psychopathy or narcissism, they certainly don't align with the moral codes most of humanity accepts. At least according to the moral framework many of us in the West subscribe to.

As someone fascinated by human behavior and incentive structures, this moral dilemma leaves me scratching my head. It would be comforting to claim that since the majority do X, behavior Y must be wrong. But perhaps I simply lack the innate conscience these individuals possess, which perceives Y as perfectly acceptable or even preferable.

I don't pretend to have easy answers. Perhaps that’s the point of wrestling—it’s an ongoing dialogue rather than a solved puzzle. I'm genuinely curious about your perspective: Do you think morality is truly universal, or is it shaped more deeply by personal conscience than we commonly admit? Since humans are irrational, what are the outward bounds of irrationalities that are tolerable?

The saddest part, I know I’m not the only one dealing with this issue. In fact, insurance companies have ‘earned’ the reputation of being devious and exploitive.

Recent headlines of State Farm changing policies while the California forest fires were taking place speak to the sinister practices c-suite individuals will employ to protect profits. Cases of people being denied coverage or services by UnitedHealthCare surfaced in the wake of the CEO’s assassination, illustrating the hoax insurance companies employ. Advertise and promise blanket protection, then quickly renege when the customer actually needs to cash in on the deal.

This phenomenon extends past insurance companies. There are a multitude of systems that function more as self-preservation machines than human-serving institutions. Here’s a list of industries and sectors that are notoriously difficult to navigate or have developed reputations for sinister, exploitative, or self-serving practices:

• Big Pharma

• Health Care and Hospital Systems

• Government Bureaucracies

• Student Loan Servicers and For-Profit Colleges

• Telecom and Internet Providers

• Tech Giants and Social Media Companies

• Airline and Travel Companies

• Subscription-Based Software and SaaS

• I’m sure there’s many more but these are what came to mind.

Just reading this list probably stirs resentment or angst in you. Apologies for digging up an old wound.

But it begs the question: where does the evil come from? Are these industries all run by villains twirling their mustaches? Or is it something more ordinary—incentives, apathy, culture, silence? Let’s look at the facts at hand.

Incentives shape behavior. As much as we would wish a utopian, selfless society existed, reality will never conform. Charlie Munger’s famous quote is, “Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome.”

The economic foundations which these companies and industries were built on are inherently contradictory to the product/service they provide.

For example, YouTube’s algorithm is specifically designed to slowly pull you to the extremes of content. Not give you a 5 min relaxation break to then go about your day.

Have you ever clicked on a video, then notice an hour has gone by and you’re now chasing a conspiracy theory of whether rabbits were scientifically altered at a point in time to produce kangaroos?

That’s extreme, but there’s a mountain of research showing how social apps are designed in ways that actively undermine the outcomes they claim to serve.

Take Hinge. “The dating app that is meant to be deleted.” Well if you delete it too quickly Hinge would lose its customers. Dating algorithms aren’t easy, and this doesn’t even touch on the science of compatibility vs. similarity when it comes to relationships. But I would be hard-pressed to bet against the odds that Hinge/Bumble/Tinder/etc could perform backend changes to more successfully deliver their ‘proposed’ mission statement to customers.

But they are not interested in helping you find a relationship. They are interested in your wallet, and stringing a dopamine carrot in front of your face to get you to pay. If you happen to find your relationship, you’re probably the outlier, not the norm. That customer churn rate is factored into their business model, yet I’m sure a part of them wishes you return for business in the future.

When talking about these industries I listed out above, there is this general theme of referring to them as an individual conscious being. Evil being, but nonetheless an individual with set of characteristics you diabolically oppose. When you talk to your friends, you say “I just hate these travel companies.” As if Delta, American, Spirit, and SouthWest are siblings of the same household, raised under parents with perverse ethics and morals.

But my recent experience with this insurance company has offered me a perspective or reality I never really considered. Human beings, just like you and me, work at these places. This is a subjective take, but I believe most humans have a general conscience to them that leans more favorably towards the goodness vs. the evil end of the spectrum.

C.S. Lewis writes about this in Mere Christianity when talking about the Moral Law and the Law of Human Behavior.

If something happens you might have two impulses. One to help others and one to seek safety for yourself. But then a third thing appears which says you ought to suppress the impulse to run away and follow the impulse to help. The thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot self be either of them.

The law of human nature is not simply a statement about how we should like mankind to behave for our own convenience, for the behavior we call bad or unfair is not exactly the same as the behavior we find inconvenient and may even be the opposite. (An enemy traitor may be someone who helps us, but we don’t necessarily see them as a good person. Vice versa)

These are just excerpts that shed light on a very real human phenomenon many of us have felt, but probably were never able to fully articulate. We have hearts. We have conscience. The display of their calibration is not always ideal, but we know they are there.

So, with that in mind, I sit here and think. “Does every employee at this insurance company wake up in the morning with the sole goal of making my life a living hell?” The answer is most likely no. They are humans, that should I meet them in any other circumstance, I might even be friends with. I might have a laugh at the bar with them. I might pick their kids up from practice on a carpool schedule.

Which then brings me back to the underlying issue. If humans are empathetic, how do corporations become these Machiavellian institutions—brilliantly engineered to frustrate users into submission. Because on the outside, we would think most of humanity would have a true sense of disgust when hearing/reading/onboarding to the insidious business model the company has. Or if their manager says, “Hey Niki, if we deny every claim that comes in today, regardless of its merit, I’ll give you a $5k bonus.” Sure it’s enticing, but the conscience in Niki would most likely have a hard time digesting that method of business. (I get economic incentives are a touchy and tricky subject. These are generalizations—maybe to a fault. Humans will go to extreme ends to survive, I get that).

It's tempting to imagine a smoky boardroom where executives hatch villainous plans. To paint every employee as some evil conformist that never speaks up against authority. As a Nazi regime reborn in disguise.

But I think the truth is scarier: there’s no one person orchestrating this. No puppet master. Just a thousand small compromises that calcify into corporate norms.

Eliyahu Goldratt says, “The goal of business is to make money.”

In the strategy marketing world, we were always presented with an initial brief that listed ‘Business Goal’, then right below it, ‘Consumer Goal,’ for the next year. Why, because as strategist we needed to find the thread that connected the two. Fundamentally they have to be different or it’s not a business. Someone needs to produce value, and the other party has to want that value.

Problems erupt when the thread between the two becomes increasingly distorted, resembling nothing but a black box. And it’s so tempting to blame that on c-suite leadership, high level managers, or boardroom stakeholders. Though they have a weighted say at the table, I don’t think they are the sole perpetuators of shady practices.

In large corporations, it’s easy for an individual employee to feel removed from the final delivery, or worse, inconsequential to it. But the truth is that they are still a part of the sausage making. Their individual choices and incentive structures compound and directly contribute to the overall functionality of the institution.

The greatest trick these institutions probably pull is divorcing moral accountability from their outcomes. Not through overt cruelty — but through a slow erosion of responsibility, distributed across a thousand rationalizations.

So while you don’t think the decisions you make at a grassroots level impact the bottom line they do. In a similar manner, just think of our voting practice. Individually our votes hardly matter, but it takes the collective nation to reach an outcome.

(Though, I must throw this quote in for additional head scratching. Mark Twain famously said, “If voting made a difference, they wouldn't let us do it.”)

My dad always says, “People vote with their wallets.” As much as they want to support what’s noble, their individual bottom line is always top of mind.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe it really is just individual incentives, trying to take care of themselves and their family, that shape the reality of these big corporations. What initially seemed like a reasonable business model gets pressure tested to the limits and out emerges a beast that was never a part of our wildest imaginations.

But I could also see a hesitancy in humans to not be confrontational. A somewhat devious manager could devise a strategy that is beneficial to the company, and since no one wants to speak out against a group, they hold their hesitations to themselves.

This is known as Pluralistic Ignorance/Abilene Paradox: when a group collectively decides on a course of action that none of the individuals actually want, simply because they believe everyone else wants it. Or a situation where individuals privately reject a norm or idea, but assume others accept it, so they go along with it — reinforcing the very thing they disagree with.

Take this example: A marketing firm is brainstorming ideas for an upcoming campaign. Someone proposes a transgender awareness initiative tied to the product. While no one in the room is transphobic, one analyst believes — based on data and market trends — that the campaign may be a statistically risky business move. However, fearing they'll be labeled a bigot for voicing that concern, they stay silent. Unbeknownst to them, many others in the room share the same hesitation — but they, too, keep quiet for the same reason. The result? The campaign moves forward, despite widespread private doubt, all because no one was willing to speak up first.

The way this shows up in the managerial example is, the plan might very well help each person on that team make more money. Knowing that people are incentivized by their own wallet, then leads people to believe they are also in favor of the plan since it promises increased profits. Thus, no one speaks up to confront the shadiness or the strategy or the harmful human element they are imposing on the customer.

Maybe it’s a combination of all the above. Maybe I’m missing critical human behavior elements that a sociologist could fill the gaps in with.

All I know is that in our current capitalist society has produced torment weapons that masquerade as human-serving institutions. We clearly see emergent evil – systems that produce harm without individual malice. You, me, and our neighbors all suffer the consequences of it, yet never seem to be able to correct their behavior. Why is that?

Maybe there really is an incredibly intelligent select group at the top, pulling the strings of the world as we know it, and we are victims of their cynical concoctions.

Maybe the Illuminati is real.

Maybe Epstein really did kill himself.

Maybe we are just too dumb to connect the dots.

"An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it’s going to launch you into something great. So just focus and keep aiming." — Anonymous

I often refer to this quote when people ask how I’m doing and I happen to be going through a rough patch. Most people don’t want to hear a Negative Nancy or a victimized take on life. We like positivity. Optimism. Strength through adversity.

So when life seems to be getting the better of me, I’ll say, “An arrow needs to be pulled back before it’s shot, right?”

But lately, I’ve become more curious about this frame of mind as I stumbled onto a thought theme that seems to be living rent-free in my head.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to fully articulate it in words, but it’s something like this:

I journey through life with the primary mindset of being a learner — constantly being a sponge of knowledge, information, experience, and feedback to course-correct the direction I’m going. You never know when something will be useful. When a past failure will reemerge and you’ll get a shot at redemption.

Humans weren’t designed for utopia. They were designed for this world — one that fights back at them, that plays no favorites. A world that’s a battleground of unrelenting adversity. One that no one has ever survived.

So it only makes sense to be on edge. Alert. Wary of the next obstacle that’s going to be thrown your way.

The great distinction between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom is our intellectual capacity for mental time travel. While a dog remembers where it buried a bone, only a human can imagine what might happen if it doesn’t find that bone tomorrow — or what others might think of its failure. This capacity for mental time travel is what allows us to regret, hope, plan, and worry.

Add in the brain’s default mode network — the system responsible for internal simulation and metacognitive reflection — and it becomes clear how deeply embedded the learner’s mindset is in our biology.

But where I find myself missing the mark is in believing there will be this ultimate moment where the lessons I’ve learned finally pay off. Where the culmination of hardships transforms me into the successful savant and the script flips. As if God has written the story of my life so that all the learning from the rising action reaches a climactic moment — and I’m able to live the remainder of my days in blissful resolution.

Let me break that down a little more.

I have this overwhelming tendency to analyze a current situation in a way that’s intended to bring about some benefit to me in the future.

“How can I navigate a social interaction next time to limit the negative emotions that accompanied it?”
“What can I learn from this setback at work so I’m successful the next time?”
“How can I package these latest life hardships into a lesson that I share with others to produce value for society at large? I would hate for history to repeat itself.”

I honestly have this belief that I must turn every point of adversity in my life into a form of compensation down the road — whether that’s financial, spiritual, emotional, or otherwise. I feel like I’m failing if I don’t incorporate every piece of current living into my mental algorithm of analysis in order to extract its full value.

If my arrow is being pulled back, I must glean an insight from it before I’m allowed to release it forward.

As if I’m living sub-optimally by neglecting certain experiences I’ve encountered along the way.

I was recently listening to a podcast with Andrew Huberman and author Michael Easter, where they explored resilience, grit, dopamine, and motivation. They examined the root of many modern-day struggles — and exposed the truth behind some of our so-called “first world problems.”

Most of you are probably familiar with the concept of delayed gratification, made famous by the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment in the 1970s. The core principle is this: short-term discomfort is necessary for long-term flourishing.

Pursuing a life of hedonism — where you choose the most pleasurable option at every moment — is bound to end in pain and regret. It’s one of life’s unavoidable trade-offs: you suffer now, or you suffer later. There’s no escaping it. The key is to suffer in a way that produces meaning.

Aristotle argued that true fulfillment comes not from chasing fleeting pleasures, but from living a life of virtue — which often means tolerating hardship in the service of something greater.

This theme runs through the Bible, too.
Luke 9:23 — Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily.”
Romans 5:3–4 — Paul writes, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character...”

Jordan Peterson puts it simply: “Don’t do what is expedient — do what is meaningful.”

Huberman and Easter point out that our modern lives are flooded with stimuli that deplete dopamine by tapping into our pleasure circuitry without offering any real reward in return.

Paradoxically, depriving yourself of pleasure — by taking a cold shower, exercising, or doing something difficult — is more challenging in the moment, but more rewarding after. Once the task is complete, your dopamine reserves are replenished — with interest — and pleasure is genuinely felt.

Huberman refers to this as investing dopamine versus spending or leaking it through instant gratification.

This got me thinking about how even noble self-denial can go too far — something I first encountered not in a psychology book, but in a finance one.

A few years ago, I read Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. In it, Perkins breaks down the fallacy we often fall into: believing we must always save for a rainy day. Save for retirement. Save for emergencies.

But in sticking to that framework too rigidly, we often die with unused wealth. Money that could have bought us experiences, memories, and enjoyment of our time while we were here.

Even if you say, “Well, I’ve left it for my children, and that’s what makes me happy,” the reality is: you’ll be dead when they receive it. You’ll never experience the joy of seeing them benefit from it. Perkins argues that delayed gratification — in the extreme — leads to no gratification.

“If we are unduly absorbed in improving our lives, we may forget altogether to live them.” — Alan Watts

Huberman and Easter both agreed that while investing dopamine is the superior approach, never spending it isn’t living either.

Chris Williamson makes a similar point: if you permanently “win” the marshmallow test, you never arrive at a moment where you actually cash in your effort for reward.

And so, back to my original mental quandary.

If I’m so fixated on reaping meaning from the present in order to utilize it in the future, does that paradoxically mean I’m living in the future at the expense of the present?

Do I need to release every arrow that gets drawn back? Do I need to attach meaning to all my struggles?

By this article’s logic, am I just paying into a knowledge bank account that I’ll never withdraw from?

Maybe just living is the compensation for the struggle.
Maybe Sisyphus was onto something when it comes to meaningless effort.

Or is life really just a biological test of survival of the fittest — and I need to be vigilant and sharp at a moment’s notice to pass it? Maybe each encounter with adversity should be met with war paint and a fight song.

Or maybe the point isn’t to optimize every arrow shot or suffer for the sake of strategy.
Maybe the mere act of being — of staying in the tension — is enough.

I’m not really sure. It’s something I’m still wrestling with.

But I’ll leave you with this quote from Naval Ravikant:

If anyone asks why I love country music, I always tell them it’s the storytelling. The music teleports me into a new world where I get to live out different life experiences — ones I haven’t had, and maybe never will. One can be so profoundly moved in a matter of minutes. That’s why I love it.

Ironically, I rarely start with lyrics. I listen for melody and vibe — an unnamed, intuitive standard my sister teases me about. But this one passed the test.

One evening I went over to Genius lyrics, fired up the song, and read along as it played:

“…Live a life, so when I die there’s standing room only, standing room only.”

Goosebumps.

One of the first articles I wrote on TCM was titled Eulogy Qualities — an ode to the idea that success isn’t measured by money, status, or achievements. I wrote it as a reminder to myself not to lose sight of what really matters. Not to have a funeral where people simply list the accolades on your life’s résumé — but one where they celebrate the ways you made their lives richer.

That’s why the lyrics hit me so hard. McGraw paints the picture of a man living a life so large that, at his funeral, there aren’t enough seats for everyone. The service is so well attended, all that’s left is standing room.

“Standing Room Only” is about a man looking in the mirror after covering some ground in life — knowing he still has more to go — and being honest with himself about what he truly wants, and the actions that will grant him peace when it’s all said and done.

There’s a line in the second verse that stopped me in my tracks:

“I wanna learn how to say a lot more yes and a lot less no.”

Reading those words on a screen doesn’t do justice to the emotion and tone in which McGraw delivers them. I encourage you to take three minutes to hear it for yourself.

Because when you do, there’s this air of resonance. Your conscience nods along quietly, knowing how true it is. An inner voice admits that the way you’re currently living might just lead to more regrets than you’re prepared to carry.

So what exactly am I wrestling with?

Tim McGraw — and my gut — are begging me to say yes more. But nearly every piece of wisdom I’ve absorbed about boundaries, fulfillment, and long-term health tells me the opposite.

There’s a strong coalition in the self-help space arguing for the value of saying no.

Greg McKeown’s Essentialism makes a compelling case for minimizing nonessential commitments in favor of living with clarity and intention. It’s about focus, not frenzy.

Warren Buffett is famous for his “25–5 Rule”: list your top 25 goals, circle the five most important — and avoid the remaining 20 at all costs. Not because they don’t matter, but because they distract you from what does. They are, as he puts it, seductive diversions.

Oliver Burkeman, in Four Thousand Weeks and Meditation for Mortals, argues that a meaningful life is built not on more, but on less. Saying no, he says, is what makes room for depth — and protects us from wasting our one wild and precious life.

Even I have preached the wisdom of adopting an Eastern mindset — of stripping away the unnecessary to uncover the essential. Removing layers, not collecting trophies.

So why, then, do I still feel swayed by Tim McGraw’s words? Why does my gut say the default setting for a good life should be yes?

Because the data paints a sobering picture. We’re more disconnected than ever. More time on screens. More loneliness. More isolation.

Does saying no help solve any of that?

If a friend asks you to grab a drink mid-week, what should you say?

If your boss asks you to help onboard a teammate during an already busy week, what elevates your leadership?

Are we really so swamped and stretched that saying yes will break the camel’s back?

We spend nearly 9 hours a day on screens. I look at that and wonder: maybe I’ve been delusional to think that saying no, in the context of this lifestyle, somehow leads to a healthier, more fulfilled life.

George Mack describes his “Luck Razor”: if stuck between two equal options, pick the one that feels more likely to generate luck. He once chose drinks with a stranger over staying in with Netflix — and later called it “the highest ROI decision I’ve ever made.”

Sure — essentialism, boundaries, and protected time help prevent burnout. But do they get you to a Standing Room Only life?

Will people remember you for saying no — or for showing up when you had every reason not to?

An old friend once told me, “You’ll never look back on your deathbed and say, ‘Damn, I wish I got more sleep.’” I was notorious for prioritizing my 8 hours, always defending it with: “I’ll get more done. I’ll feel better. I’ll be happier.”

But part of me knew he was right. He wasn’t telling me not to sleep. He was telling me: don’t fixate so much on the future that you forget the present is all you ever have.

I don’t think I’ll ever perfect the dichotomy of yes and no.

But I do know this — Standing Room Only will be my final arbiter when I’m confronted with a choice.

So maybe the question isn’t Should I say yes or no?

Maybe it’s: Which choice adds more people to the room when it’s all said and done?

Because a Standing Room Only life is built by showing up when it matters most.

What are your thoughts?

Finally, some comfort in the midst of a hectic week.

Thirty minutes later, your order shows up. Your endorphins start jumping at the mere thought of enjoying this meal in the next few minutes.

You pick up the order at your front door. Walk back to the kitchen. Open the bag.

Wrong order.

Like any normal human, I think it’s safe to say we’d all get frustrated here. Maybe even regardless of the setup I just laid out. You could be having the best day of your life—someone still messes up your order and all hell breaks loose.

It’s totally reasonable to react that way. Hell, I do. You spent your hard-earned money on a transaction you wanted executed to your specifications. A certain level of competence is expected—hence why you ordered from them in the first place.

But the conflict I keep running into—and keep wrestling with—is this: I’m getting mad at a human for not being perfect.
As if I’ve never made a mistake.
As if I’m some finished product with my shit together, just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

That’s a bit hypocritical. I’m as imperfect as the person walking next to me. All 8 billion of us are.

And yet—even with that understanding—I still catch myself slipping into this mindset where I assume other people are just more off their shit than I am. So I get frustrated at their incompetence. Then I get mad at myself for thinking like that. It’s egotistical. I know it. And so begins the spiral.

What’s helped lately is running a mental exercise: when I’m about to get irritated, I try putting myself in the other person’s shoes. I invent a plausible reason why they might’ve messed up. Just to play devil’s advocate against my own frustration.

And you know what? It actually helps. As I start rehearsing these little fictitious defenses in my head, the tension naturally starts to diffuse. I’m reminding myself: I’m not dealing with a machine. I’m dealing with a human.

That person might not be incompetent. The restaurant might not be a bad restaurant.
A mistake happened. That’s all. Because a human was involved—and humans always make mistakes.

And if you interpret every mistake as the new norm, I fear you’ll live a much worse life than if you simply chalk it up as what it is: an occasional human error. Because lord knows you make them too.

Which brings me to a bigger question I’ve been sitting with:
Where do we draw the line between a forgivable error and a justifiable frustration?
When am I actually allowed to be upset that someone let me down?

Here’s one thought:
Anytime you willingly hand over your money to another human, you’re taking a risk. And that’s on you. If you’re unwilling to accept the risk of human imperfection, then your only option is to do it all yourself—or micromanage until it’s done. But that’s completely impractical.

That would mean personally driving to the restaurant, placing the order yourself, standing next to the chef to make sure they get it right, then overseeing the hand-off to the Uber driver to ensure safe delivery.

You’re paying for the convenience of not having to do all that.

And as I mentioned in a recent post, we’ve specialized as a society to the point where we can rely on others to get things done. Most of the time.

But money isn’t a guarantee of competence. You’d like it to be—but it isn’t.

So now I use something I’ve started calling The Envy Question.

If I don’t admire something about the person I’m frustrated with—if I don’t aspire to be more like them in some way—what gives me the right to hold them to a higher standard?

“Envy” might not be the perfect word, but it gets at something. If I wouldn’t trade lives with them, why am I demanding perfection from them?

Now—this isn’t to belittle anyone. Especially those in service roles. But let’s be honest: when you pull up to McDonald's for a double mac, are you expecting Michelin-star execution from someone who’s probably overworked, underpaid, and managing 12 orders at once?

You kind of know what you’re signing up for. And if you choose to walk into that transaction anyway, then that decision—and all its risks—is on you.

But there are people I hold to a higher standard. People I respect. People I want to be more like.

Let’s say it’s a friend or mentor you admire—their character, their integrity, the way they move through the world. You’ve modeled parts of yourself off of them. So when they drop the ball—when they ghost you, snap at you, or act out of line with who they usually are—it stings.

That frustration is different.
It’s not about superiority.
It’s about shared standards. It’s about disappointment rooted in respect.

That, to me, is the only kind of frustration that feels truly valid—when it’s pointed at someone I genuinely look up to, and it comes from believing they can be better.

Because I want them to be.

I just think in life, it’s hypocritical to expect everyone else to have their shit together—when we most certainly don’t.

So don’t just get frustrated next time.

Pause. Breathe. And remember: if you’re trusting another human to do something for you—especially someone you wouldn’t switch places with—you’re rolling the dice.

And that’s okay. We all are.

That’s the cost of convenience.
The cost of community.
The cost of being human together.

“A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until he knows everything about nothing.”— Konrad Lorenz

It’s a general understanding that human civilization has thrived through economic specialization. Allowing individuals to pursue work that aligns with their unique skills, interests, or comparative advantages has led to enormous gains for society.

We no longer need to be jacks of all trades to meet our needs. Humanity has evolved to the point where, with a few taps on a glass screen, we can send a signal to a satellite orbiting the earth — and five minutes later, Taco Bell shows up on our doorstep.

We’ve come a long way from sharpening stones to tie onto sticks, crafting makeshift bows, and setting out on foot to hunt our dinner.

And for the most part, that’s a good thing. Our lives are longer, easier, and arguably more comfortable than at any other point in human history. You could make a case that happiness tells a different story — but still, it’s hard to argue there’s been a better time to be alive.

But lately I’ve been wondering: Have we evolved so far, we’ve disconnected from what made progress possible in the first place?

Take a young adult who studies computer science. They go to college, land a job as a coder, and maybe build an app that gets Taco Bell to your house in three minutes instead of five.

But could they set up electrical wiring in a home? Could they build an electrical grid from scratch — the very foundation that makes their specialty even possible?

We tend to build on top of systems without ever asking what those systems are built on. And the deeper our expertise gets, the further we drift from the basics. Not because we’re lazy, but because it’s easy to assume someone else already figured it out.

But what happens if those systems collapse?

Comedian Nate Bargatze has a great bit where he imagines time traveling into the past. The catch? He couldn’t actually convince anyone he was from the future — because he doesn’t understand how any of the technology works. He knows it exists, but not how to rebuild it. And honestly? Neither do I. Neither do most of us.

If the power grid failed tomorrow, if a meteorite hit, or if we lost access to the technologies and infrastructures we now take for granted — how long would it take us to rebuild?

If all the physical records disappeared, if AI went offline, and all the knowledge we outsource to search engines and cloud servers was erased — would we even remember how to begin?

It’s not a doomsday question. It’s a curiosity about how fragile our knowledge really is.

Do we need to rethink our educational paradigms to make sure we’re not just training specialists, but grounding people in first principles?

I love having the world at my fingertips when I’m connected to WiFi.

But where am I vulnerable when I’m not?

Thought I’m wrestling with.

“To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think - spend some time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that's a heck of a day.” - Jimmy Valvano

I wasn’t born in 1993 when Jimmy V originally gave his “Don’t ever give up” speech after receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. But as an avid sports fan I would tune into the end-of-year awards hosted by ESPN every July, and in his honor, the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance would be presented to ‘a deserving member of the sporting world who has overcome great obstacles through perseverance and determination.’ In the lead up to this award they often show flashbacks of Jimmy V’s original speech, which is where I first encountered this quote.

To this day I’m a little surprised that it struck me so profoundly. As I’ve mentioned in past articles, the adolescent boy in me was always drawn to the flashy cars, status symbols, and power influences (think Kobe Bryant Illuminati commercials), not necessarily heart-touching memoirs speaking to softer sides of humanity. But nonetheless, whenever I was asked to reference my favorite quote, that’s the one that came to mind.

I think it just took time for the Hinduism practice of Advaita Vedanta to mold me to the point of realizing why I was so drawn to this quote. (Advaita Vedanta is the act of stripping away identification with things that are not your true Self - body, mind, thoughts, emotions - until all that remains is your true self.) Full transparency, this practice will continue until I’m laid six feet underground, but I’ve shedded some of the bulk of materialism in the last few years, to where I can see the true light of this quote.

If you want more insight on Advaita Vedanta check out my article "Eastern Vs. Western Thinking."

In all honesty, I would bet most humans walking earth right now don’t check one of Jimmy V’s original boxes each day, let alone all three. Think about it, how often do you carve out time or provide the space for your mind to think, reminisce, and reflect? How many times do you have a genuine laughter engulf you to the point you log it on your smartwatch as an ab workout? How often do you cry, visibly moving and releasing your emotions from the internal autonomic nervous and limbic systems into tears?

This is not intended to be a pitch for or against any sort of masculinity standard. Sure, I was raised in an environment where I equated crying to weakness, and I purposefully fought back tears at my grandfather’s funeral to portray an image of strength for my family to lean on, but I know that’s not necessarily healthy. And vice versa, getting emotional about every little thing will only backfire in one's inability to compartmentalize and navigate complex scenarios that require a certain level of stability and equanimity.

But for the better part of the last decade I never cried. It's easy for me to blame it on the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) medication I was taking for OCD, since it's a natural emotional regulatory substance intended to keep individuals from experiencing the dramatic highs and lows of life. That was only reinforced after reading the book “Lost Connections,” by Johann Hari. Hari posits that depression and anxiety are often rooted in various forms of disconnection in our lives, such as disconnection from meaningful work, relationships, and a hopeful future. He suggests that SSRIs may sometimes dull our emotional responses, potentially hindering our ability to fully engage with and understand our emotions. This emotional blunting can make it challenging to address the underlying causes of our distress and to live a fully engaged life.

There is no doubt some truth to that claim, but I’m now understanding I’m not great at truly being ‘in touch’ with my emotions. At least beyond the basic level of feeling ‘something’ in my body.

For the last eight years or so, I’ve funneled so many emotions into a large bucket and labeled it anxiety. Once I had any sort of bodily sensation, whether it be light headedness, butterflies in my stomach, increased heart rate - it was synonymous in my brain with anxiety. It doesn’t take a genius to draw the connection between a panic attack exhibiting many of those same symptoms, and your mind trying to protect you against them ever happening again each time that familiar feeling arises.

Overtime I had calibrated my emotions to being either anxiety or neutral/contempt. That in part is also a byproduct of an OCD mind, ruminating on sensations in the body, thus inducing a compulsion cycle of behavior and thinking. So a compulsion would be to quickly label X emotion/feeling as anxiety so I could apply my therapy to combat the cycle from escalation. Paradoxically causing it to continue.

But that also meant my spectrum of emotions was next to nothing.

It really wasn’t until recently, during some classic “peel back layers of the onion” therapy and self reflection that I came to see how I was doing myself a disservice by condensing so many emotions into my one label of anxiety.

When my therapist kept questioning me as to what my anxiety was tied to, and putting a description to the anxiety, I was able to see how the core fear I was ruminating over laddered up to “shame”.

All the anxiety, pain, and suffering I was putting myself through was due to the fact that I was scared to experience shame.

Shame from my parents. Shame from my friends. Shame from the world. Shame from myself.

What I’m wrestling with is at the very core of human consciousness and one of the most distressing OCD themes: the fear of uncontrolled agency. Because I’m responsible for everything I do in this world, that means each mistake I make is because of me. Not some stranger. Not my teacher. Not my parents. it's because of me. That naturally leaves me susceptible to feeling shame because my morals won’t let me deflect any outside judgment to a third party. I’ll go out of my way to find how I was somehow responsible, and thus liable to blame if something goes wrong.

The funny thing is, once that self-reflection hit, the OCD thoughts weren’t quite stinging as much as before because I now had a specific label on the feelings attached with my rumination/compulsion. Which thus had the effect of diminishing their strangle hold over my mind.

My therapist shared the following ‘emotions wheel’ with me in a recent session to help me navigate the world of feelings outside of just anxiety.

As time went on, I referred to that wheel whenever I felt my ‘anxiety’ starting to brew. Our bodies don’t have a complex language of communication with us, it's just a few neuromodulators and nerve synapses trying to alert us of some sort of stimuli. We don’t really have different chemical releases or physiological responses to these generic molecules, and thus if we don’t slow down to fully process what our body is trying to tell us, we’ll continue putting band aids on emotional bullet holes.

Oddly, one example that comes to mind, and that I’m sure will resonate with dog lovers, is when I just stare at my dog gently sleeping, watching the world go by on his ‘pride rock,’ or even just looking into my eyes, I’m overtaken with emotion. I used to think something was wrong with me because I would actually get anxious in those scenarios. But I realize now, I’m just flooded with joy and peace. I’m genuinely happy.

This journey has been helpful in helping me develop a better palette of emotional understanding, and diversifying the spectrum of emotions I actually feel. Now, when I feel a wave in my body, I ask: is this grief? Is it excitement? Is it longing? And sometimes, when I’m lucky, it's all three. Laugh, think, feel emotions. Turns out Jimmy V was onto something.

Yet with all this reconnection with my emotions in the last few months, I haven’t been able to bring myself to tears. I think about sad things. Watch a romance movie with a dramatic ending to try and feel something. Listen to voicemails my grandfather left me—to remember the sound of his voice. But in every case, the tears are dammed up, never falling.

That all changed very recently. And the following event was the catalytic force bringing me to write this article.

My dad had been bugging me for the better part of a year to watch the show “1883” starring Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. As an avid Yellowstone fan, and a viewer of it's spin-off series “1923,” it seemed a no brainer to also watch “1883.” But for some reason I just never had the desire to do so.

Now I know why.

God has his time table, and his timeline is always right. He moved me to watch it when I was ready for its impact. When I was far enough along in my Advaita Vedanta journey to fully absorb the message he wanted me to hear.

Without giving away any spoilers, the last few episodes really weigh heavy on the heart. I was choked up the whole series finale, and then cried my eyes out walking my dogs through the park afterward. When I looked up reviews from other critics and fans, they all mentioned how emotional that storytelling was in the show.

Part of me was relieved to finally complete the Jimmy V triplet of laughing, thinking and moving my emotions to tears. But there was another part of me that couldn’t comprehend how a fictitious story, that I know isn’t tied to any real life characters, was the driving force behind it all. The dichotomy around experiencing emotion by watching a TV show vs. actually living seemed counterintuitive.

Shouldn’t I be emotional about things happening in my life? Or emotional about history and current events as they impact other humans around me?

It was then that I remembered Jordan Peterson’s opening remarks in his Biblical Series lectures. Peterson used Hamlet to demonstrate that fiction can embody a fundamental 'pattern of being'. Universal human truths that resonate precisely because they echo our own moral and psychological structures. He extended this argument to the Bible, suggesting these ancient narratives hold the same archetypal power: we don’t read them for literal history, but because they reflect the shared patterns of humanity.

Peterson contends that fiction’s power lies in abstraction. By distilling life’s messy complexities into archetypal narratives, fiction often reveals ‘more truth’ than dry factual recounting. A film or novel, he argues, can be ‘more real than normal life’ precisely because it uncovers the underlying patterns of being. Patterns that are universal, psychological, and mythological.

I realized the story moved me not because it was real, but because it revealed something real in me. Maybe that’s what great stories do. They bypass logic, speak to the symbolic, and pull something out of us we didn't know was buried.

We all have watched shows and movies where we are ‘rooting’ for certain characters, or praying the plot turns out the way we would ideally like it to. Doesn’t that fascinate you? You’re emotionally connected with made-up personalities and characters to the point of yelling at your screen like they can hear you, stalking Reddit threads for fan theories, mourning character deaths like you lost a friend, or even avoiding episodes because you can’t handle what might happen next. Some people have thrown actual tomatoes at movie screens, others have named their children after fantasy characters, and plenty have flat-out boycotted a series when their favorite character died. And let’s not forget the full-blown existential crisis some experience when their favorite show ends for good, like a strange kind of grief. It's weird, but also deeply human. These stories aren’t just entertainment. They’re mirrors. We project ourselves into them because, at some level, they’re telling our story back to us.

There’s something undeniably magnetic I’ve found watching 1883, Dances with Wolves, reading the Gabriel Allon series, or watching movies set during the Holocaust. It's more than appreciation for the storytelling, it's a longing. A yearning to belong to something ancient, meaningful, and deeply rooted in a shared identity forged through hardship. For me, as a Christian, I’ve found myself strangely drawn to the tight-knit Jewish communities in Israel. Bound not just by faith, but by memory, suffering, and survival. There’s a kind of sacredness in that bond.

The same with Native American cultures. Their honor, connection to the land, reverence for tradition, and the wisdom passed down through generations. It's not about romanticizing their pain; it's about recognizing the nobility that suffering can produce when it's carried communally, not just individually. Maybe what we’re really craving isn’t just the aesthetic of another culture, it's the depth of belonging, the clarity of purpose, and the moral cohesion that many of us feel our modern world has lost.

Without being in touch with my emotions, I couldn’t have possibly reaped the full benefits of all these pieces of art.

All that said. One weird thing I’ve found in being human, is that sometimes our emotions just aren’t calibrated correctly. Life comes at us so fast that sometimes our internal understanding of the changing environment lags behind or never catches up.

What do I mean?

When I travel out of country, I touch down and think, “Hours ago I was in a totally different part of the world. I just sat in a metal cylinder flying 10,000 feet in the air at 300 mph, and everyone is calm as a cucumber.” That’s fucking wild. When you really think about it we should be amazed, scared, and joyful. But those feelings don’t really hit for a day or two.

Or do you ever have the reflection that something is ‘surreal', yet you are absent of emotions. I distinctly remember driving through the Alps with my sister, looking around at the most beautiful snow capped portrait of mother nature I had ever seen, but didn’t actually feel anything. It was almost as if there was a green screen in front of me with a panoramic portrait of the Alps. I didn’t think I was actually there.

Other ways I’ve seen it sneak up on me or I could imagine it hitting others, is when you do something that changes your life. Let’s say you get a dog, or bring your first kid home. Your life has completely changed, but you’re still just kind of living like you always have. There isn’t some emotional climax to the moment that you assumed there would be. It's hard to describe, but sometimes the gravity of reality doesn’t seem to strike the way I think it would. Especially when I know I can be so moved by a fictitious TV show.

I’ve also found a particular melancholy in the fact that emotions fade over time. I’m sure there are evolutionary reasons why humans needed to disengage from past events in order to survive, but it's still sad that the emotional weight of something so meaningful can dull with time. The memory stays, but its gravity lightens.

I actually get upset at myself for not feeling more when I think about my grandfather. Or certain vacations. Or milestone achievements. I get frustrated that I can’t vividly recall the details of moments with people I love. The images are blurry, and the feelings are muted.

I’m always envious of people who, at the flip of a switch, can transport back to exact scenes in their life with rich recall, emotional depth, and perfect context. That’s just never been my gift.

If you asked me to name my favorite memory with my parents, my sister, or even with Boo man, my mind goes quiet. Nothing specific comes to the surface. And yet, I know I love them with all my heart.

Maybe there’s truth to the quote, “People won’t remember what you said. They’ll remember how you made them feel.”

Maybe I should start writing some of these moments down in an emotional journal. Something to keep the feeling alive. Or maybe part of being human is letting those memories soften so that new ones have room to take root.

Which leads me to another paradox I’ve come to witness: the more I try to be present, the less present I become. The more I try to feel, the more numb I become. I’ll be walking through the woods and find myself thinking, “Look at the trees. Feel the breeze. Be present.” But in that very moment, I’m no longer in the experience, I’m narrating it. The second I step into self-awareness, I’ve stepped out of the moment.

And here’s the strange thing: our most joyful, blissful states often don’t register until after they’re over. When we’re truly in flow, fully immersed in a conversation, a sunset, a song, a laugh, we aren’t aware we’re in it. We only realize it was special when we look back and miss it. That’s the paradox of consciousness. The truest moments of presence often escape conscious recognition because to be fully in the moment means we aren't busy noticing it.

If we set out each day to check Jimmy V’s three boxes of laughing, thinking, and crying, we’ll probably end up missing the mark. Taking time each night before bed to reflect on your day might be a better formula for ensuring you don’t become a passenger in your own life.

Spend time developing your emotional spectrum so that you get the maximum utility out of that aspect of your life. It's the fundamental part of being human. Start experiencing the life part of living. Not as a goal to chase, but as something waiting in the ordinary, quietly asking to be felt.

I don’t farm. I don’t hunt. I don’t build shelter or haul clean water. I sit at a screen—sometimes to solve problems, sometimes to stare into the abyss of my own search bar—and I get paid for it. Paid more than the people doing work that literally keeps me alive.

We’ve become so surplus-rich that people earn full-time incomes from playing video games, selling digital pictures, or analyzing data tied to arbitrary financial derivatives. And I’m not judging that—it’s just… weird. Astonishing, in a way. But weird.

Think about it: entire industries exist to serve micro-needs that only emerged because we had time, money, and convenience to spare. Entertainment—sports, movies, music—makes billions not because it feeds or shelters us, but because we no longer need those things. I doubt a group of nomads in 2000 B.C. would’ve bartered their invaluable supplies to watch little kids review toys on YouTube.

And yet, it’s the knowledge workers, managers, and abstract thinkers who are often valued most by our modern society. People like me. We get paid handsomely for organizing, strategizing, optimizing—often with no physical output you can hold in your hands. Just digital files and messages flying around in cyberspace.

Don’t get me wrong—I understand how having basic needs accounted for allows for the leisure time that produces ideas and innovation. But I wonder: if that same “abstract thinker” were born in 1245, would their social status be equivalent to their modern-day value?

It’s just fascinating that the human race has evolved to the point where being able to manage people or think abstractly is the skill society rewards. Often exponentially more than the laborer or master craftsman.

It makes me wonder: how much of what we do is actually valuable… and how much is just self-reinforcing theater?
We produce abstractions to sell to people who, in turn, produce their own.

I’m not sure if this line of thinking is useful or nihilistic. Paradoxically, it’s these very modern advancements that have afforded me the ability to write this article—and feel a sense of value in doing so.

So on one hand, it humbles me. On the other, it pressures me to do something “real”—as if growing sweet potatoes is more noble than running strategy meetings.

And maybe it is. Maybe part of our modern mental health crisis stems from being ungrounded—disconnected from work that ties us to the earth. We’re floating in the metaverse while reality is right beneath our feet.

Or maybe the better question isn’t “Am I doing something essential?”
Maybe it’s: “Is the life I’m creating feeding something essential in me?”

Still wrestling.

You won’t find hot takes or polished certainty here. What you will find are essays shaped by reflection, spiritual tension, psychological frameworks, and the ongoing challenge of showing up with integrity.

Sometimes it’s personal. Sometimes it’s philosophical. Always, it’s honest.

I write about:

• The inner critic and the pursuit of perfection

• Ethical leadership and self-examination

• The intersection of faith and psychology

• Mental models for navigating life with clarity

This isn’t a business. It’s a body of work. And if something here resonates with you, I’d love for you to stick around.

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☕️ Support the project here if you want to help keep the lights on (and the thoughts flowing).

Or just read, reflect, and take what you need.

Thanks for being here.

– Mitch

We all have inner voices — some helpful, others harsh. For much of my life, I listened to one above all others: the one that measured worth in effort, and demanded perfection at any cost. I call it Internal Dictator Syndrome. This essay is my attempt to understand it and its origins — and begin healing from it.

Part 1: Understanding the Voices of the Republic

A few months ago I took the Gallup Survey, CliftonStrengths-34, as part of a team building activity at work. Our lead thought it would be great to have some additional context to what strengths each member of our team had, and use them to inform her, and others how each member of the team works best. In this personality test, you are asked to rate paired statements about yourself, that indicate which are your more dominant traits and characteristics. There are a total of 177 questions that you answer on a range of statements, and then as a result, you get a chart that identifies your strengths out of 34 themes. These “themes” are personality characteristics that drive the way you deal with and behave in different situations.

After completing the test, I got an email with a 30 page PDF outlining my results and analyzing the unique blend of themes that the test says I have. To be honest, I wasn’t all that interested in what it had to say, but because we were doing a team meeting where we presented our reports to one another, I started grazing through it.

The number one theme/trait that the assessment said was my strength was, Responsibility.

How you Thrive: You take psychological ownership of what you say you will do. You are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.

Insights: Chances are good that you are a person whose work ethic is as much a matter of conscience as it is a matter of completing tasks. You undoubtedly need to do what you know is right, honest, true, correct, proper, and accurate. It’s very likely that you are sometimes internally motivated to reach your goals as an individual performer. You might push yourself to excel by recalling the obligations you accepted or the promises you made.

At face value, this seems like a wonderful trait to have as a human. Or you might read that and say, “oh yeah, I bet he’s one of those hard chargers, always being productive, can’t sit still.” I’m extremely grateful for the psychological makeup I was born with and the nurturing my parents gave me. But for my own growth and healing, I have to acknowledge the yin to this yang of my personality.

During the team meeting, as I was explaining my survey results, I made the following comment in regards to my responsibility results. “You can hold me to any standard you want. But I’m already holding myself to a higher one. You can yell at me for not being good enough, but I’m already yelling at myself louder than that, so you’re just wasting your breath.”

I was not expressing that sentiment from a place of superiority. Quite the opposite, I was highlighting the glitch my ‘responsibility theme’ can manifest when the wires aren’t sorted correctly. As aware as I am of my disposition towards the negative end of this personality trait, I’m admittedly struggling to change it.

Though I’m sure not everyone reading this article would label themselves a perfectionist or even an overly ambitious person. That’s ok. Where I think we can all relate though is identifying that inner voice in our head that seems to dominate our self-chatter (internal thoughts), but doesn’t actually benefit us in the aggregate that we perceive it to.

This article is not intended to have a thesis that culminates in a tidy conclusion that packages up all the tools and practices one can do to fix that inner voice. Rather I hope the following observations, stories, and comments raise awareness to you the reader, that humans do in fact have different internal voices. It’s not about eliminating the voice or telling it to shut up, but being aware of when it’s dominating or being prioritized at the expense of our long term well-being.

Without getting extremely philosophical or psychological, we each have a committee of distinct inner voices. Many times ranging from three to seven unique personalities/voices. The way I think is probably different from how you think, but when I’m listening to my thoughts I ‘hear’ the same tone of voice. Though the tone of the voice in my head always sounded the same, over time I’ve learned to distinguish the different ‘characters’ behind the thoughts.

My first introduction to ‘separating’ thoughts came from the book “Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts,” when I was learning about Pure-O OCD and the normalcy of humans having intrusive thoughts. The author, Sally Winston, does a phenomenal job capturing the internal dialect of an individual, and calling out how they really are different parts of our psyche talking to us.

There are multiple other inner voices labeled by psychologist, but the three main prominent ones in this book are Worried Voice, the anxious narrator that treats thoughts like an emergency/threat. False Comfort, the reassurance seeker that tries to comfort Worried Voice. And finally Wise Mind, the voice of the calm, detached observing self. An example of each voice for the scenario around quitting your stable job to pursue a creative passion would look something like this:

Worried Voice:
“What if you fail? What if you lose your income and can’t recover? People will think you’re irresponsible.”

False Comfort Voice:
“You’re fine where you are. Just give it a few more months. You can always do your passion on the side — maybe next year.”

Wise Mind:
“You’re afraid, and that’s okay. But what matters is what aligns with your values and long-term growth. Take one step at a time and stay grounded in what matters most.”

That’s a very oversimplified example, and often times, the thoughts aren’t quite as distinct in theme. For a mind new to say, meditation or self-observation, your thoughts will all seem mono-themed. You’ll say, “No that’s just how I think and talk to myself.” But with time and effort you’ll start to be able to parse out subtle differences behind the voices in your head and gain an observing perspective towards the round table of competing thoughts swirling around in your noggin.

One philosophical observation that I heard recently regarding understanding yourself (as it relates to viewing your thoughts) came from Joe Hudson, an executive coach and author of “Art of Accomplishment, on his podcast with Modern Wisdom. He said, “What you want and what you think aren’t you. They can’t be. What you want now, what you want in 2 mins, or in 10 years changes, so by logic that can’t be you. As far as what you think, we can’t control our next thought, we can’t stop our thoughts. They arise unbidden and often contradict each other so that can’t be you either.”

I fully understand that this idea is getting very philosophical, as now that opens the door to what is consciousness, what is a soul, what is a thought etc. That’s not the emphasis here. Rather it’s shining a light on the notion that “you” are the awareness behind experience, not the experience itself.

One of three marks of existence in the Buddhist practice is Anatta (no-self), which teaches that the ‘self,’ as we think of it, is an illusion. We are not our body, thoughts, emotions, or story, as these things are all temporary and constantly changing/evolving. The ‘true you’ is not a thing, but a process of awareness.

The benefits of meditation and self-observation far surpass just being able to identify thoughts, or distance yourself from thoughts, but I want to ensure I’m making it clear that there is this distinction between fundamentally who we are, and what we think. Then as you grow in self-reflection, you will get more comfortable keeping distance between ‘you’ and your thoughts. And consequently, you can then acknowledge different thoughts as considerations/opinions rather than commands that must be obeyed.

I’m guilty of identifying with my thoughts. Of believing I’m synonymous with the voice I hear in my head. Or more specifically, becoming attached to a sole talk track (specific voice), and leaving the other voices by the wayside. I’m writing here to share my story, and showcase the dangers that erupt when a dictator emerges in a republic.

Part 2: Erasing Youthful Bliss

I took that Gallup Survey test when I was 28 years old. The formative years of my brain development were well behind me, and my 28 years were lived through my singular consciousness, so it’s all I know, for better or worse. With that said, I’ve been thinking about the nurture realm of my development and the sources of influence that shaped my ‘inner voices’ and default settings as I navigated the world around me.

Without getting into the nitty gritty of my childhood, the quick synopsis goes something like this. I was a typical boy, playing with trucks, LEGOs, and Star Wars action figures for the first few years of my life. My parents signed me up for youth soccer, lacrosse, and hockey, in which I was often the star player on the team. By elementary school, the trucks were replaced with nerf guns, skateboards, and video games. As one can imagine, my attitudes and efforts towards school were not the focus. Summer reading was a scam, writing cursive was old school, and looking cool in front of the girls, despite them having cooties, trumped academic accolades.

My world changed one spring day during 5th grade.

At the time, I was attending a private elementary school, as my parents thought it would be a worthy investment in my holistic childhood development. Classes were smaller, and there were more resources for students to access on their educational journey. The only downside was they didn’t have lacrosse or hockey teams. So my parents agreed that I could transfer to the local public school the next year in order to be in a school system that had these sports teams. In my 10 year old head, “5th grade didn’t matter and report cards were just paper. Besides, I was getting an athletic scholarship to college.”

So back to that spring day. We had a 4 question math quiz earlier in the week. Something tells me it was on long division or some arithmetic problem solving. Either way, throughout my whole elementary school career, I don’t recall getting numeric grades on assignments. It was sort of like a black box where we would do something, turn it in, and never see it again. Our only feedback on performance occurred when our quarterly report cards showed up in the mail to our parents, and they were alphabetic grades.

For some reason, students got these quizzes back with their numeric scores on the top. It was right at the end of the day, so I grabbed the paper, saw I got 1 out of the 4 questions wrong, walked to the car line where my mom was picking me up, hopped in the shotgun seat, and handed her my quiz. “What was I going to do with it, my parents were the ones that read my report cards not me.” Next thing I hear.

“A 75! YOU GOT A 75! We are going to have a talk about this!” - my mom.

That day changed my life. My perception of the world transformed from one in which I was just living in it care free, everything being handed to me, to one in which I viewed my effort as a source determining the direction of my life. It wasn’t an overnight change, but my attitude towards school shifted 180 degrees by the fall.

From 6th grade till high school graduation I made high honor roll with distinction every quarter (95+ average), graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 3.96 GPA in college, and Cum Laude from a master’s program regarded as the best entrepreneurship school in the country.

If a child psychologist is reading this story, they are probably analyzing and pin-pointing how it aligns with the definition of Parental Conditional Regard that is, when a child thinks that love and acceptance are contingent on performance, which fosters a fragile self-worth tied to achievement. And also, how I was activating neuropsychological feedback loops. That is, associating success with self-worth and achievement. And consequently, becoming hypersensitive to failure: triggering stress and shame responses.

They may be right, but that was never how I perceived my childhood, or how I reflect on it today. Looking back at through all those years, especially high school, I never had a thought that a bad grade would impact my relationship with my parents. It was this internal ego/drive fueled by the belief that if I worked hard I would be rewarded in life. Within reason, I held the belief I could do anything I set my mind to (maybe this is a universal flaw in how our world communicates to children). I wasn’t going to be an NBA superstar as a 5’7’’ white boy, but there is no reason why I couldn’t be the CEO of JP Morgan, a heart surgeon, or the United States Attorney General. At the end of the day, those people are all human so what makes them better/more capable than me?

Just to be clear, that last rhetorical question was what younger me thought. My “wisdom” at 29 now has recalibrated that theory quite a bit. But as my mindset changed in middle school towards a more effort driven approach, and I saw rewards from the behavior shift, I created a world view equation in my mind that made success seem equivalent to effort, and if I kept completing the tasks in front of me I was bound to end up at the top (side note - ‘success’ in my teenage mind meant money and fame; thank God that definition has changed too). If I kept getting A’s in school, I would get into an IVY League college, which was just the last step on the ladder before becoming a money guy on Wall-Street (they only hire the best, right?)

Maybe this view of success was influenced by being raised in a blue collar/working class town where I subconsciously believed the amount of money/recognition one deserves is associated with the amount of work/suffering they are willing to do for their work. If the equation for success is linear based on one variable, my brain leveraged that variable (effort) to the Nth degree.

Thought Experiment: “Imagine a world in which you’re unanimously adored by millions, but you hate yourself. Are you happy? Is it worth it? Now imagine a world where you’re disliked by everybody, but you love yourself. We sacrifice the thing we want (self worth) for the thing which is supposed to get it (validation).” - Chris Williamson

You might laugh, but my younger self went to bed each night focusing on the first line of that thought experiment. Those same child psychologist might read this and conclude my drive for success is my attempt at filling some void I had in my younger years. Who knows. I’m the person I am today due to the life I lived, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

I provide this backstory to add some context to the framework my younger self operated under, because it shows the roots of my bias towards effort and the internal motivation highlighted in the “Responsibility Theme.” That bias magnified in my younger adult years when I started getting into self-help books, listening to podcasts, and idolizing Special Forces soldiers.

Part 3: The Rise of a Dictator

One of the first books I read was “Living With a SEAL,” where now famous, David Goggins, gets hired by this entrepreneur millionaire trying to see if he can hang with Goggins’ lifestyle of endless running, push ups, and hard tasks. His motto is, “stay hard.” Soon I was waking up at 4am before classes to get miles in on the treadmill, wearing shorts in the winter, and doing intermittent fasting to ‘toughen myself up.’

Add in some Jocko Willink motivation speeches and books, along with countless other military biographies and stories, and I convinced myself to be respected by the people I respect, I needed to push myself to the limits. I was always fascinated when reading war stories of soldiers staying up for days on end in battle with no food, limited water, injuries, wounds, and they kept fighting. Effort is not something you’re born with, it’s an adaptation you can train your mind to pursue/endure. You always have control of your effort, regardless of the circumstances.

The only easy day was yesterday.

Discipline Equal Freedom.

Nobody cares. Work Harder.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

This became my outlook on life. Though I wasn’t trying to go into the military, I took pride in modeling my behavior and mindset off of the individuals who were our nation’s ‘best men’ (very subjective statement, I know).

The Amazon shopping algorithm suggested, “The War of Art,” by Steven Pressfield based on all the other book I had been buying. Naturally I read the summary, since 2002, The War of Art has inspired people around the world to defeat "resistance"; to recognize and knock down dream-blocking barriers and to silence the naysayers within us, and selected next day delivery.

Resistance is the invisible, insidious force that rises whenever you try to grow, create, or pursue a higher calling. It manifests as procrastination, self-doubt, fear, rationalization, perfectionism, and even addiction. It feeds on fear and thrives when you value comfort or approval over your calling.

How to Recognize Resistance:

• You delay starting important work.

• You feel the need for external validation before you begin or continue.

• You hear an inner voice saying:

  • “I’m not ready yet.”

  • “This isn’t good enough.”

  • “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

This book reinforced my bias towards effort, even with ‘knowledge’/academic work. My default setting became taking on challenge, and my internal alarm system blared whenever thoughts of resistance tried to creep in. Any subjective feeling of slowing down or taking a break I labeled as ‘resistance’ and pushed back into it.

“Don’t start writing the paper tomorrow if you have time to write it today.” “If you get comfortable, that means you’re not bettering yourself.”

It’s also worth noting, during my late teens and early twenties, that ‘hustle culture’ became prominent, especially through the social media channels I was following. Individuals like Tim Ferris, Gary Vee, Alex Hormozi, and even a personal favorite of mine, Jordan Peterson, were promoting the ideology that constant activity, ambition, and grinding are the keys to success and self-worth. This hustle culture is rooted in entrepreneurial and capitalist ideals, and encourages individuals, mainly young males, to tie their identity to work performance. Performance that directly correlated to effort.

The downside to social media, is the individuals successful from deploying this strategy get to shout their story to the masses, while those that fail never have a seat at the table. It’s a one sided conversation. I think it’s only natural that you begin comparing yourself to these individuals. And thus, your mind is constantly fixated on the idea that someone out there is outworking you. Someone is waking up earlier than you. Someone is starting their entrepreneurship venture. Someone is doing more than you with less.

That effort (dictator) inner voice/default setting is flipped on the second you wake up.

One ‘hustle culture’ reference that always stuck with me was when Jordan Peterson outlined his view on the Myth of Sisyphus. For those unfamiliar, the story is a Greek myth about a King who gets punished by the gods for his deceit tendencies and ‘cheating death’. The gods condemn him to the eternal, meaningless task of rolling a huge boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down once it nears the top. The cycle goes on for eternity.

Jordan Peterson drew the analogy that life is suffering; the boulder is real. He agrees that life has a fundamental component of struggle and pain to it, but rather than accepting that absurdity, we should confront it with responsibility and purpose. That is, ‘pick up our cross’ and ‘shoulder the load’. We can’t escape the suffering, but we can choose to carry it willingly, transforming that suffering into nobility and meaning. It’s meaning that is worth pursuing, not happiness, and thus the antidote to suffering. Jordan says that meaning is found in the struggle towards improvement, and that it is our moral responsibility to carry the heaviest load we can.

One trait that I picked up from my mom, was sacrifice (I’ll tie it back to bearing your burdens, just you wait). My whole life I don’t think I ever heard the following phrases come out of her mouth “I can’t do…, I don’t have time for…, I’m too exhausted to…”.

We had a home cooked dinner as a family every night during school. The laundry was always magically done. House spotless. If I needed an appointment somewhere, I tell my mom and next thing you know it’s scheduled. Package to return, mom took care of it. Need something at the store, mom’s on it. Oh, and not to mention she is a full time teacher, who coaches sports year round.

It wasn’t until I started living on my own that I could truly appreciate the totality of how amazing my mom is. Realizing how much work and effort went into some of these tasks that I never had to do. I don’t know about you, but I could do without the dread and anxiety that accompanies needing to call on office to schedule an appointment or contacting customer service for some return discrepancy.

She sacrificed so much because of her love for her family. Her sacrifice had meaning to her. She wanted her kids to have a life better than hers. The American Dream. Thank you mom<3

I think sacrifice is also a trait that I envied in the military stories. It was the foundation to all the men. They did the hard work no one else could so that Americans, and humans around the world could enjoy a free life. They didn’t do it for the pay, for the prestige. They had a moralistic view that good guys need to defeat evil, and they signed up to foot the bill.

Between picking up on that trait from my mom, and infusing my brain with story after story of military heroic sacrifice, it’s not surprising that a core tenant of my demeanor was modeled around this behavior.

The problem comes when suffering masquerades as sacrifice. You think you are finding meaning in the sacrifice, but when the light of truth hits it, you realize the hollow abyss of pain you were subjecting yourself to. You weren’t sacrificing for some positive outcome, you were rewarding yourself for experiencing pain. A dangerous phrase I found myself repeating: "I’ll suffer so others don’t have to. My tolerance for emotional discomfort is high, so I rather take on the hardships of the world so that others can be happy. I’ll sacrifice my happiness for theirs.”

I used this phrase in a previous article, but it’s so powerful that I wanted to share it again.

Chris Williamson discussed with Cam Hanes on his Modern Wisdom podcast last week the quote by Viktor Frankl, “When a man can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.” But Chris offered an insightful observation, that there are individuals who fulfill the inverse of that quote. People who can’t find pleasure in life, so they distract themselves with meaning. Individuals who strive under the notion that infinitely delaying gratification is the answer.

If you’ve made it this far in the article, you probably see how it felt like one of those mascot big foam finger being directed right towards me when I heard that. I took the Sisyphus analogy from Jordan Peterson and ran with it on a runaway train leading towards personal anguish. “All the suffering will pay off, just keep working hard. Bear the biggest burden possible Mitch. The more you suffer/sacrifice the bigger the success.”

This outlook even wove it’s way into my faith. When reading the bible every morning, I was internalizing religious teachings, not as a liberating grace, but as a suffocating law (despite reading the chapters specifically outlining how Pharisees and Sadducees were missing the very essence of Jesus). I even accepted that I would never be perfect, Jesus was the only one who was perfect. The paradox to that reflection was it left me susceptible to exploring the endless ways I could be better.

I could always be holier. I could sin less. I could tithe more. I could spend more time with God. I could share the Gospel with more people. I could spend more time in the Word.

“If I truly believe in God, why do I still spend more time and energy admiring other idols in my life, and not him? That must mean I don’t walk the walk, so I’m a hypocrite. I must do better.”

It was this perception that, because I was consciously aware of my actions, and made a commitment to God, that deviating from God’s will, law, and desires, meant he would be disappointed in me every time because I was choosing something other than Him. I confessed to him that I knew his teachings would make me a better man, so each time I fell short it felt like a God was shaking his head in disapproval.

Not to mention, one of the early Christian books I read was “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day,” by Mark Batterson. Mark’s themes in the book talk about how God-given opportunities will look like fear and doubt, but that we should run towards them. Faith requires risk and discomfort - God calls people into the wild, not into safety. Faith isn’t passive or timid; it’s courage and bold. We must reframe adversity as part of God’s preparation process.

Here’s how I read it:

• “If I’m not constantly taking bold risks for God, I’m failing Him.”

• “Rest, doubt, or emotional struggle are signs of spiritual weakness.”

• “God’s will is always scary — so if I’m comfortable, I must be disobedient.”

• “I should feel guilty if I’m not doing something radical, hard, or public.”

I don’t want to get into the nuances of each sect of Christianity or argue one view is better than another. At the end of the day, Christianity is the belief that God created us out of love and made a way to restore our broken relationship with Him. Jesus Christ, God's Son, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, and rose again to defeat death. Through His sacrifice, we are forgiven and made right with God — not by our own efforts, but by His grace. We are saved through faith in Jesus, not by works, so that no one can boast. In response to that gift, we live in freedom, love, and purpose, empowered by the Holy Spirit. (I know this but can’t fully accept it)

Just to cap it all off, let’s add in some scientific facts that emphasize effort and work. Andrew Huberman explains in a few of his podcasts that dopamine levels rise in anticipation of a goal, propelling us to take action. Importantly, he notes that initiating an activity can itself trigger dopamine release, which then sustains and enhances motivation as we continue the task. Therefore, rather than waiting for the perfect moment or a surge of inspiration to start something, Huberman suggests that taking the first step can activate the neural circuits associated with motivation, making the process of continued effort more manageable and rewarding.

For the last 15 years, the inner voice in my head that had the last say or that was prioritized at any cross roads, was that inner dictator that used harsh language to drive results. That inner voice that emphasized the word “should” and “shouldn’t” hundreds of times each day to coerce me into action.

I would mentally start whipping myself for not starting projects/tasks. Because in my head I knew, scientifically, there was never a right time to start something. Huberman says that it’s the pursuit of something that actually triggers the dopamine. So I need to start it in order to feel good. If you’re going to start it, start it now. Waiting is only wasting time.

And if I didn’t start it, I feared I had corrupted my value and my self worth, that was so tied to being the one who could always be counted on to put in effort. That was strong willed mentally to push forward in the face of adversity. It was a lose-lose scenario. Not only was I not getting any work done, I wasn’t resting and rejuvenating either because I was too busy beating myself up for not getting any work done. The double edge sword of the ‘responsibility theme’ in full effect. I refer to this mental environment as ‘psychological quicksand’ because all the effort being expended is only hurting you. True relaxation is the only thing that lifts you out of the sand.

My logic also went something like this. Fundamentally nothing changes if nothing changes and habits are extremely powerful. Each day is your chance to enforce a habit or lose momentum. As C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity, "Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance”, and as James Clear demonstrates in this graph.

I feared I wouldn’t be able to change my behavior tomorrow if I gave into rest today. For I believed whole heartedly that each moment defined my future. The science of habit formation tends to reward consistency. So I convinced myself: no days off

A similar train of thought to this concept plays out like this. “Ok Mitch, in 10 years time, what do you want to achieve? Ok, what can you do today to work towards that? Ok do it. Oh and remember, if you don’t do it today, and you repeat today for the next week, the next month, the next year, you’ll never get any closer. Today defines whether you get there or not. You can only live in the present.”

I create these microcosms of the world through my days/weeks and then use them as the predicting elements of my future. Much like we use historical data to predict future trends, I look at my past and use that as the benchmark for whether the future will unfold the way I intend it to (warning: false logic present).

I realize now, that’s just a fear of uncertainty (a common fear of those with OCD). And me having anxiety about habit stacking and habit formation was really me trying to find certainty. I was trying to stack the odds in my favor of my future self by leveraging habits, since I didn’t have faith in my moment to moment motivation/willpower/thoughts. Or rather, wanted my biology/psychology to be on the “good side” at the time of judgement (the arbitrary future).

Part 4: A Revolution for Good

From that little boy in 5th grade who just wanted to buy big houses and drive fast cars, I had come a long way in terms of redefining my self worth in the world, and the aspirations I felt encompassed a life well lived. I’m proud of myself for developing the character and personality that can be dependable. And for developing an affinity towards effort and action. And lastly, I thank God for the gift of self-reflection to ‘correct’ my paths along this journey.

It is with that reflection, that I humbly acknowledge I suffer from Internal Dictator Syndrome (IDS). I’ll admit, I came up with that term as I was trying to think of a pithy title for this article, but the key component driving me to write here, and come to terms with dominating internal voice, was from the Joe Hudson podcast with Chris Williamson (linked below).

One of the main topics of conversation on this episode revolved around negative self talk. Joe said “If you have a voice in your head that is constantly criticizing and attacking you, that is constant stress. That’s a war zone.” He goes on to explain that when we are constantly under attack from our own thoughts and expectations we are going to be exhausted. This sort of incentive thinking to drive action is referred to by Joe as ‘dirty fuel.’ It works, and you can perform, but it is not sustainable and will lead to burnout.

Joe’s business works with many CEOs and start up entrepreneurs, and he says that those individuals that rely on ‘dirty fuel’ to grow and run their business are the ones that can’t wait to sell it off and go to the beach. They don’t love what they do, they simply are outcome driven and worry about their performance.

This phenomenon is captured by Chris in another one of his newsletter essays that he calls ‘The Insecure Overachiever’ (a potential symptom that can indicate IDS). Chris says the mindset of an Insecure Overachiever reflects the following, “When faced with a challenge, your nature might be to worry and obsess and grip tightly. Because worrying is so common in every pursuit you attempt, your successes are seen as proof that worrying is a performance enhancer, and your failures are proof that you should have worried all along.” Or as Andrew Wilkinson says, “A walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity.”

Chris goes on to say that he doesn’t think fear is aiding the performance of those individuals, it’s really just habits and experience that are dictating the outcomes. So the fear might be somewhat beneficial to spark project commencement, but it can’t be the fuel that propels it forward into the distant future.

Arthur Brooks in his newsletter recently made comments that align with the to ‘Insecure Overachiever’ observation, and that feed into the whole Internal Dictator Syndrome paradigm. He said, “Fear of failure is especially harsh for high-performing people because success is often their self-imposed identity. As such, failure in school, work, or marriage is almost like a death fear. You wouldn’t know it from their confident exterior, but they are often tortured souls.” That last line, tortured souls cut so deep with me, and reflects the exact same conclusions Joe Hudson makes about those who constantly have a dominating negative inner voice.

Brooks goes on to explain how the fear of failure is a poison for individual happiness because it can steer us away from life’s joys and adventures, and discourages us from taking risks. His antidote is not to shut up the voice of fear, rather give room for the voice of courage to balance it out. He says, “Instead of avoiding the source of your fear even in your own mind, spend time each day visualizing scary scenarios, including possible failures. Picture yourself acting with courage, despite the fear.”

Joe Hudson’s antidote for the negative inner voice is very similar. The first is switching from a mindset of ‘self-improvement’ to one of ‘self-understanding.’ He poses the rhetorical question, ‘Think of five things you told yourself you should do in the last 10 years and haven’t?” When you reflect on them, there is shame associated with it. A self-improvement mindset is really shaming yourself into improvement. It’s mental abuse. It’s that repetition of words “should” and “shouldn’t” in your thought vocabulary.

Joe makes the comment that any time we try to force ourselves to do something it will be resisted (which just happens to align with Newton’s Third Law of Physics). Especially a force that is viewed as oppression. That force of self-improvement will be feel like a force of oppression, and it is impossible to love anything that you feel oppresses you. It’s just not in the human DNA to be able to do that. Thus, a self-improvement mindset will stagnate your growth and happiness.

Self-understanding rather is exploring yourself through a lens of curiosity and emotional clarity. Emotional clarity is the outcome of inviting, and welcoming in your full range of emotions and establishing boundaries for yourself. Instead of trying to eliminate certain feelings, and promote others, see if you can identify the source of that emotion. Is it a certain voice in your head that is trying to speak up but isn’t getting the time of day? Or is it the result of another voice being the dominating party in the room?

This is also where a bit of grace can be offered to yourself. We are only human. C.S. Lewis in the opening pages of “Mere Christianity” outlines what he calls The Law of Nature, where he explains how humans all over the world have an idea that they ‘ought to’ behave a certain way. To which his next observation is, “but they do in fact not behave that way.”

I was talking with a buddy of mine who had been trying to get into a routine of meditating in the morning with the calm app. He said, “I feel better every time I do it, but it’s been two weeks since I’ve opened it and I’m not sure why.” I instantly related because I have those same patterns of behavior in various aspects of my own life. That’s just the world we live in. Embrace it, don’t fight it.

The last golden nugget from the podcast Joe Hudson on Modern Wisdom was his reflection on realizing enjoyment was what lead to efficiency. His analogy references how a fast car is not an efficient car. An efficient car is a car that uses less fuel. Enjoyment is how we know we are using less fuel. Think of how much more you can get done when you’re in flow states, in your zone vs. when you feel compelled to do something.

Enjoyment isn’t necessarily what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it. No matter what we are doing, Joe says 20% of the time we probably won’t be enjoying ourselves unless we learn how to enjoy whatever it is we are doing. Ask yourself, regardless of what you are doing, “How can I enjoy this moment 10% more?” That question itself will help increase your efficiency. It’s not about controlling your environment into enjoyment, but learning how to enjoy your experience in that environment. The environment and your framing of the experience in said environment are two levers that can be pulled to enhance your efficiency.

“I still find myself with this sense that success has to be earned. And the only way to earn it is to inflict pain on yourself. And if you’re not in pain you didn’t try hard enough. And it would have been better if you’d suffered more. And I think that’s a lie, and I want to find out if it’s a lie or if it’s true.” — Rich Roll

One last tool in the toolkit that I’ve been leveraging as I combat my own Internal Dictator Syndrome, is the KIST method promoted by Martha Beck. KIST stands for, Kind-Internal-Self-Talk, which is basically meta meditation/loving kindness meditation towards the self.

It entails looking at any part of you, any frightened part of you and saying "I've got you, may you be well, may you be free from suffering, may you be happy, may you be safe and protected, I'm here, you're alright, there is no danger in the room.”

That inner dictator is probably thriving because of an overcharged amygdala (fear center in the brain) which may be due to no fault of your own. There is no need to fight it and contend with its powers. Rather, show it love to help it return to baseline. Don’t tell that inner voice to shut up, instead welcome it. Ask it to tell you everything, and let it know that it’s going to be ok. That you’re there for it.

You would never try comfort a lost child or a wild animal by shouting back at it or manipulating it into submission, so then why do we try that so often when we are trying to comfort ourselves?

As you strengthen your loving kindness muscles, you’ll have an easier time tapping into the ‘self’ - that always companionate, courageous, curious, and creative awareness that was mentioned in the beginning of this essay. Once that ‘self’ starts to talk to you, you’re on your way out of the woods, and towards healing.

Beck says that we must love ourselves despite our shortcomings, and love yourself for hating the part of you that hates that you have shortcomings.

Closing Reflection

As I wrote this article, I suffered from all the negative thinking and anxieties that accompanies Internal Dictator Syndrome. I wrote this piece for myself as part of the healing process, and as a guide to refer back to in the times I get struck, or gripped by my old ways.

I had moments were I just wanted the article to be over so I didn’t have to deal with the angst of wondering if I would have the willpower to keep writing. Or the fear that I wouldn’t be able to connect certain references of work in a way that was comprehendible for a reader other than me. Or that I was wasting time producing something the world wouldn’t value.

I had to constantly keep referring back to the quotes I outlined above, and the guides for navigating negative self-talk. It was reminding myself that I don’t ‘have to’ write anything. Reframing in my mind that writing for TCM shouldn’t be something I ‘ought’ to do, rather it’s something I want to do. Something I enjoy doing.

Deep down, I knew producing an article wasn’t the goal. Writing this was just the medium I needed to process my thoughts. To reflect. To slow down my thinking and allow all the voices of my psych to have a say at the table. That was what I ultimately wanted, because that is what would allow me to understand myself fully.

In creating my latest TCM Threads article, I got to reflecting on my tendency to use the “save” functionality with certain posts on Instagram. My practice of highlighting passages in books to then transfer over to a Word doc on my computer; to bookmark newsletter articles on my browser bar to have on hand for some future date when I’m inclined to reread them.

Inevitably, I never go back to them. Or if I do, it’s to scratch the itch of trying to remember “where I heard/read something” that pertained to a current conversation or thought I had. I wasn’t going back through the content to interact with it, update my interpretation of it, or decide if it added value to my life.

When I take a honest look at these habits of mine, they stem from a fear of being forgetful. A fear that I will be wasting my time if I read something for 30 mins and not have any takeaways from it. Those are 30 mins I can’t get back, so I must optimize my time and be continuously growing/striving. (This ties into the “Maximizer” mindset I outlined in my previous Pick Your Choices article that I’m still grappling with - always a work in progress :))

So in a sense I’m trying to create an insurance policy for myself against losing knowledge with these different “save and record” tendencies. If I convince my inner conscience that I have filed this piece of content somewhere in the folding cabinets of my cerebellum, then I get to tell myself it wasn’t all a waste. I saved something for a rainy day. An artifact to reference.

It’s really a fear of my finitude and limitation as a human, that masquerades as a “productivity/memory” hack.

In my article : Which Version of Me Are You Looking For, I talk about how elusive our memories are as humans. As much as I’m aware of that, there is this rebel inside me that doesn’t want to believe it. Or simply won’t accept it. That’s not said in the light of some entrepreneur that ‘doesn’t take no for an answer’, but rather a true melancholy of realizing so much of living happens in the now, and my memory won’t be able to recall all the good moments or useful pieces of information I’ve encountered in my life.

Memorization is linked to another fear of mine. The fear of embarrassment. At some level, I’m always trying to avoid that feeling I got in grade school when I would forget to do an assignment or study for a test. I can’t describe the feeling, but it was never pleasant to have. Just pure stress. And honestly, that feeling probably became an unconscious motivator for me to be organized and accountable. Because I dreaded the emotional response associated with the consequences of being laisez-faire.

That fear lingers in me to this day. The ideas that trigger the fear have morphed. They’re not prompted by angst of forgetting homework, or having a bad mark on a report card, but from work, uncertainty of the future, and other daily living scenarios.

It wasn’t until I heard Joe Hudson say, “We are scared of the emotional result of things, not the actual thing itself,” that unlocked an insight for me. Many triggers of fear for me weren’t the underlying fear itself. They were just the delivery vehicles. It was that emotional discomfort, freeze moment I would have when I was little, thinking I was in trouble, forgot to do an assignment, was spontaneously called on during class, or had to read out loud, that I was ultimately fearful of.

My attempts to be more braced for uncertainty or follow up questions at work, or to have information top of mind when conversing with someone laddered up to guarding against that emotional discomfort response. As I listened to podcasts there would be moments in which I would become extremely anxious. And I realized it was when I would put myself in the podcaster or their guest’s shoes and wonder if I could do what they’re doing. Could I be an elegant speaker, linking ideas from various domains, and recalling specifics of studies/findings fluently over the course of a 2-3 hour conversation, with no mess ups?

The anxiety was really my body saying, “Hey Mitch, this situation has the potential to leave you embarrassing yourself and looking forgetful. Imagine if you don’t have something to say or can’t remember a specific fact while you’re trying to record a podcast, you would be mortified.”

But as I said, I’m fully aware of how forgetful the human mind is, and deep down I know many people would just laugh at the situation should I ever encounter it. I’m also fully aware that people are way more concerned about themselves and rarely recall embarrassing moments of other people, because they are paradoxically also thinking about not making a fool out of themselves. But my body views that emotional response to an embarrassing/inattentive event as an experience to be avoided at all costs. So every time I question if I’m remembering things properly, I go to the worst case scenario happening. That’s the binary thinking aspect of fear in full effect.

With the ever increasing role of technology in our lives and access to information, the running insight has been that school age kids (our future generations) don’t have to remember information, they have to remember how to find the information. And what’s even scarier, is that with the rise of AI, finding it and interpreting that information is damn near frictionless. I have my own reservation with AI (another future Threads article coming), but it would be hypocritical of me to say I’m not manifesting a nearly identical behavior. I’m wiring my brain to be more of a search optimization engine, rather than a direct knowledge sponge when I store knowledge away to come back to. Because a piece of me is avoiding facing the reality that I may forget something. If I never commit it to memory I can’t forget it; I just have to remember where I stored it. That’s my scapegoat.

Obviously, it takes energy to remember. Huberman has numerous podcasts about leveraging alertness, attention, and focus to optimize learning/remembering things. There’s also studies that outline how grand master chess players burn thousands of calories just thinking in a game of chess. That mixed with our biologic wiring to preserve energy, it makes sense why we don’t commit to learning/remembering everything. It’s work.

But I’m beginning to embrace the notion that there is tremendous value in challenging our own memory, and engaging in thought deeply, without fear of forgetting it at a later time. There is a quote at the beginning of a self help book I read, where the author specifically calls attention to the reader (who is very likely to be a person to hyper obsess on processes, create rules for themselves, and develop a plan of action) to specifically not take notes while reading the book. He says, “The good shit always sticks.”

That quote, mixed with the scientific understanding that curiosity is one of the best mental states/mindsets to be in for learning, should help ease the anxiety behind always trying to remember and recall everything you come across.

In a Q&A episode of Modern Wisdom, Chris Williamson talked about how people shame him for always referencing quotes. But his explanation for it resonated with me deeply. He says maxims and aphorism serve as a gateway into the entirety of the concept. You won’t have a trigger that just unlocks your memory of the entire concept. Rather you begin at an entry point that consequentially helps you connect the corresponding flow of ideas. It’s why mantras are powerful, because they recenter you around an underlying ethos that often times you can’t even put words to, but that guide your state of mind.

“What you know that you don’t even know you know is far greater than what you know you know.” - Naval Ravikant. There are feelings you have that have no words to describe them. Thoughts that are felt subconsciously that you never articulate to yourself. An example Naval references is humans can’t explain the rules of grammar yet we execute them near perfectly when we speak. We can’t always consciously convey knowledge, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I recall drawing a comparison of my brain to a filing cabinet a few years ago. Upon encountering something in life, or learning about a subject, I file it away in memory along with thousands of other things with a rare chance of ever revisiting it again. But once something opens the drawer and pulls the file out, things start coming back to me. Say you’re at the bar and someone mentioned the Ottoman Empire falling in World War 1; it’s as if all my files associated with AP World History, 9th Grade, Mrs. Schmitt, and the like all start resurfacing. The Ottoman Empire served as a maxim to explore all the following concepts/memories of that time.

That’s probably not the best example or even the most relevant in the context of a “mantra” like aphorism, but I think it highlights the unique ways in which memories flow back to us that we didn’t even remember we had. Memories that we never consciously tried to store, but that have nevertheless found homes in our brains.

My aspiration for the next few months is to foster a more curious approach to the content, and information I come across. Instead of reading something and book marking it or sending it to a friend because I really like it, I want to sit back and reflect right then and there, on why it resonates with me. Spend a little extra time, energy, and attention in the present to experience the full effect of that train of thought for my own benefit, instead of hoping I can recall it in a conversation later to sound informed, smart, or pithy. (Note: it’s not my intention to do this with EVERY thing I come across, but rather those pieces where my previous “storing” habits want to kick in)

Joe Hudson, in that same podcast episode mentioned above, talked about the benefits of self-understanding over self-growth. Self-understanding begins with curiosity, and allows for emotional clarity. Self-growth rather, stems from a more motivational, conflicting origin that aligns to emotional management. When we try to force ourselves to do something, we naturally put up resistance. The word “should” always seems to garner some inner resentment. And Joe says this is exactly why self-improvement doesn’t work as well as self-understanding (in the long term).

I may be a bit of a lone wolf when it comes to this fear of remembering information or experiences, but I think the lesson to be learned is that life isn’t meant to be lived with this dreaded sense of hoarding, needing to hang on, or scarcity driven mindset, but can only be fully seized when you lay the struggle down to rest.

I started writing this article a few weeks ago with mixed feelings on whether I would post it or not. It’s extremely personal and the most vulnerable I’ve been to date. But it’s my authentic story, and my raw cognitive recollection of the life I’ve lived and the challenges I’ve faced. It’s not my intention to garner any pity, envy, sympathy, or empathy from the words that follow. It’s not intended to be a story about being a helpless victim. It’s a reflection about being a human on this earth. And to be honest, these words are written for me more than anyone else. They are a words to the man I know I am capable of becoming, and words I hope he looks back on with pride in making them come to fruition.

For the last eight years, I’ve struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Our society paints the picture that OCD is that quirky mental condition where people like to be neat, tidy, clean, orderly, and need things done in just the right way. It’s common place for someone to say, “Sorry I’m a bit OCD when it comes to …” fill in the blank with some sort of organizational preference that an individual has. But sadly, those statements really sting when individuals who have OCD hear them because it’s not actually OCD.

OCD is defined as when an individual has thoughts or obsessions, and then performs compulsions to alleviate the anxiety or stress that the thought prompted. The key hallmark to OCD is that the obsessions are intrusive, meaning the individual doesn’t want to have them. Performing a compulsion alleviates the anxiety momentarily, but then paradoxically strengthens and reaffirms the original obsession, making the anxiety come back even stronger. OCD is labeled as the 7th most debilitating illness in the world. That’s not just psychiatric illnesses, but all diseases, cancers, and other health maladies combined, and it impacts close to 4% of the population, many of whom are undiagnosed because it flies under the radar. I know first hand, because I went to health professionals for nearly four years before that term ever came up in conversation.

There are close to 15 different categories of OCD. The contamination, symmetry, counting, and checking types are more widely known and what people often associate with OCD. But there is another subset called Primarily Obsessional or Pure-O OCD. Because I wasn’t actively reading medical journal literature on obsessive compulsive disorders, I was oblivious to that diagnosis. But many medical professionals are as well, due to no fault of their own, so this is my small attempt at helping to turn that tide. And if the following experiences resonate with you, just know you’re not alone.

Back in 2017 when the original panic attacks I wrote about previously took place and I started seeing medical professionals to get testing done, everything came back negative or inconclusive. I even had an two hour MRI done on my heart to see if there were any anomalies in the flow of blood from one atrium to the next causing my stress response to activate falsely. I took all the common psychiatric assessments. I saw probably a half dozen different therapists to explain all the trials and tribulations of the past six months that led me to the chair directly across from them.

Each time I explained my story I was told, “Wow that’s a very detailed summary of events and feelings. You are really observant and have great introspection.” I would leave with the ambivalent feelings of being heard but not understood. As much as it was comforting to hear that there was nothing wrong with me from a diagnosis standpoint, it still was frustrating to be living a life that was a constant fight, and not understanding what that fight was.

The nature of my thoughts consequentially caused me to be guarded and apprehensive in opening up to people about my mental struggles. You already feel alone, and because you feel ashamed of your thoughts you close off even further from everyone around you.

On top of that, your thoughts scare you to death, so you convince yourself it’s a burden you have to bear alone because you fear if you told your family and friends what was actually going on in your head it would make them extremely worried. Having others worried about you only amplifies the pressure of ‘holding it together.’

I was so fortunate to be connected with a therapist in 2021 that I felt really comfortable with, and fully opened up with regarding the demons that were in my head. She had a previous client that had similar experiences and thought it would be worth my time to reach out to an OCD specialist. I can’t thank her enough for admitting she couldn’t properly help me, knowing I was really struggling, but did everything in her power to connect me with people who could.

At this point, you’re probably wondering the context to the fight that I’m talking about. What Pure-O OCD is.

Pure-O OCD is a subtype of OCD where compulsions happen mentally instead of physically. People with Pure-O experience distressing intrusive thoughts, images or sensations in their body and engage in hidden compulsions like rumination, mental reviewing, and silent reassurance-seeking to quell the anxieties they experience with those intrusive thoughts. You’re fighting your thoughts with your own thoughts.

With Pure-O, the flow of events typically starts with an intrusive thought about some sort of doubt. A “what if” intrusive proposition. “What if I drive my car off the bridge.” For the majority of humans, that is actually a totally normal intrusive thought to have, and if you asked someone if they have ever thought about that before, almost 100% of them would say yes. But as quickly as that thought entered their brain, it flowed down their stream of consciousness never to come back. It was a moment in time that didn’t alter their interactions with the world.

Someone with Pure-O OCD might have that thought, but instead of it passing through their stream of thoughts, it would consistently keep cycling. The original intrusive thought produced a doubt for that individual that made them uncomfortable. Potentially they had the thought, “What if I drive my car into the crowd of people?” and then started creating a story about the consequences of that doubt.

“I would go to jail for manslaughter. Everyone would think I’m a evil person. I would be placed in a mental asylum, never to be allowed in society every again.”

Now because that original intrusive thought has consequences attached to it, an individual with Pure-O OCD begins searching for a way to eliminate that doubt. “How can I be sure I never hit someone with my car?” The internal talk looks like this:

“Why don’t we just avoid streets with a lot of walkers. Next time we have to go into the city let’s just take the metro. Actually, it would be best to never drive a car because you just never know what will happen.”

All the symptoms of OCD follow from an original doubt. Without that doubt, you would remain firmly grounded in reality. Doubts don’t just come out of the blue, there is a trigger for them, and reasoning behind the obsession. And frankly, the reasons your OCD brain comes up with are quite clever, and convincing. Just doesn’t mean that they are correct or valid. You won’t always have an idea on where your reasoning comes from, but when you have Pure- O OCD you feel like you need to act on the doubt in some capacity.

As you begin engaging with the doubt, thinking about consequences, fighting with your own reasoning, you end up creating a narrative story that your brain gets attached to. You create neural pathways in your brain that deviate from logical deduction or reality, and you start living in an obsessional world.

These obsessional ideas start to develop a history and a story attached to them, making them feel real, reconfirming your original doubt. And as you can probably guess, the larger the obsessional story gets, the more solidified your neural circuity gets. Those side road detours your brain originally took start looking like interstate highways for obsessive thoughts and doubts. The obsessions become the default mode for thinking instead of rational, reality based reasoning.

Over time, those obsession become so familiar to you that you think a fundamental part of your core being has changed. The obsessions portray the illusion that you have become the individual your doubts have been fearful of the whole time. You’ve lived in the obsessional world for so long that it now seems synonymous with reality. That is one of the scariest places to be. You second guess every step you take, every move you make, and every thought that enters your conscious state.

You have so many intrusive thoughts that you start wondering if maybe they aren’t intrusive and they are just how you think now. Therapies and practices are in place to identify intrusive thoughts and handle them as so, but if all you have are intrusive thoughts its hard to differentiate an intrusive thought from your normal thinking because your “normal” thinking has been absent for so long you have no substance to compare the intrusive thoughts to.

The war with Pure-O OCD is hard to explain, because again from the outside looking in, nothing seems wrong with you. You’re not in pain, but you’re hurting. You look forward to sleep not because you’re tired but because it gives you the only escape from having to wrestle with your thoughts.

There is a component of anxiety that alters your experience called Thought-Action- Fusion. A brain highjacked by Thought-Action-Fusion anxiety makes it seem that there is little difference between thinking about something and it actually happening. “What ifs” are not experienced as guesses or imagination, they feel like reality. You will have the intrusive thought of pulling a fire alarm. And instead of it being a thought, your body physically experiences the smooth, red plastic clicking through the barrier to activate the alarm, you see your hand on the alarm, and you hear the sirens blasting. You see everyone frantically leaving the building. And you feel the shame associated with being the one who screwed up everyone’s day. It’s all taking place in the obsessional world you created, but again, it feels so real.

Any thought that triggers the alarm makes ordinary risks feel unreasonable. Anxious thinking requires an absolute guarantee that a disastrous experience you think about won’t occur. You feel driven to ask for reassurances of safety and you try to avoid the situations that trigger the feeling. And of course, anxious thinking can’t get that guarantee. You are seeking certainty.

People can be extremely high performing in spite of OCD, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t make a deal with to devil to end the hell they find themselves in. The emotional trauma and suffering that you put yourself through living in the obsessional world of your mind absolutely destroys you.

I know. For better or worse, I mask the pain really well. I can go out in public, live my life, face the fear and no one ever knows. That’s where the article title comes from. Some would say, “Well hey that’s good! That means you’re coping well and it’s not defeating you.” But it also means you’ve chosen to bear the burden alone and aren’t leaning on others for support. It’s a dangerous game.

When it’s bad. Like really bad, I don’t get to turn my thoughts off. It’s an all hands on deck situation. 24/7. Living on the edge of just never knowing when it will end, or if it will end. Therapy helps you build up tools in your arsenal to cope with the intrusive thoughts. But that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier.

If anything sometimes knowing full well what you need to do but feeling like you don’t have the strength to do it makes it all feel even worse. For me it’s also:

“Am I applying my therapy and coping skills correctly or am I doing it wrong?”

“I’ve gone through this experience before so why haven’t I learned from it?”

“Why is it still bugging me even though I’ve coped with it, done therapy, slept 8 hours, exercised? Did everything in my power I know how to do? Why me?”

That is when I have felt the most helpless.

When you know there are areas of your life that you could clean up because you’re not being the best in them right now, you almost have a scapegoat for your issues. If you’ve been staying up late watching television and consequently getting bad sleep, or even something as little as avoiding your PT exercises to rehab your knee, a part of your conscience accepts the guilt of not being your best self. You know you could do more but are choosing an easier, less confrontational route.

When you feel like you’ve locked in and done everything in your control, with the right intentions mind you (reference to previous article), that’s when it gets lonely and the depression start to seep in.

The best way I can explain the emotional toll that it takes on you would be something like this. Imagine someone was poking you. They continue to poke you for 20 mins. When they are really annoying, maybe for 3-4 hours. You might say, “ok I could put up with that. It would be tedious but I could do it.” Ok, now extrapolate that to 6-8 hours of cumulative poking everyday for 2-3 months. Oh also, the catch here is you don’t get to snap back at them or tell them to stop. You can’t react act all. You have to be completely still. You can’t express your frustration one bit. Your OCD has convinced you that if you do snap (give into an intrusive thought/react to the poking) your life will be ruined because you’ll never trust yourself again. If you give into one intrusive thought, you’ll never have faith in yourself that you could maintain equanimity in the face of adversity ever again, effectively ending your ability to be a functioning human on this earth.

That longing to scratch that itch, to tell that bully to stop, completely drains your emotional reserves. I’m sure everyone knows the feeling of their patience being down to its last straw and the energy it takes to maintain composure.

Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, also known as ERP , is a clinically proven and highly effective tool for gradually getting comfortable with a fear or anxiety that is troubling you. When done correctly, individuals learn to recalibrate their nervous and stress response to the stimuli at hand as to not jump into fight or flight mode. ERP is not easy, and it takes courage to voluntarily put yourself into a position you know elicits stress from your nervous system.

ERP will look different for everyone, but one of the key components to its success is that you slowly build up your tolerance/severity to the exposure. You don’t just ‘rip the band aid off'.’ You start slow and over time acclimate your nervous system to the stressor at hand. Also known as stress inoculation. Another important aspect of ERP, is that you end it. It’s not intended to last forever, as you want to give your nervous system a break from being activated, to allow the body a chance to return to equilibrium.

Say you have a fear of heights. For the first week you might stand 20 feet away from the cliff’s edge. You stay there through the discomfort of the anxiety until you nervous system realizes it’s not actually in danger, or at least isn’t in the danger it originally thought it was in. The next week you move to within 10 feet. The next week 5 feet. Then eventually maybe you even sit on the edge of the cliff. Your body slowly builds up a tolerance to the uncomfortableness of heights. *Note, this is not medical advice or a prescriptive example of how to get over a fear of heights. It is a rudimentary example of how ERP is designed to work.

While ERP has helped me in certain scenarios in recalibrating my relationship with certain intrusive thoughts, it isn’t a blanket solution to all my troubles.

For me, when OCD is bad, life becomes the exposure. There is no off switch. Every room I walk in I scan for threats. My intrusive thoughts start formulating worst case scenarios even if I’m doing a routine task. I’m constantly on edge. There is an ambient feeling that something is going to go wrong at any second, and I’ll likely be the culprit of it. I’m convinced my emotional reserves and willpower will hit empty and I’ll snap.

One of the most difficult pills to swallow during my hardest times is accepting that I don’t have a safe space. Realizing that there is nothing in my power I could possibly do that could end the suffering between my ears. Even if it is for just a moment. If I’m with people, I worry I could hurt them in someway, and when I’m alone I worry there is no one to protect me from myself.

As I said, ERP works when you’re able to walk away and let your mind process the work. When your nervous system is constantly activated because your mind has become a runaway train of intrusive thoughts that are trigger agnostic, and just want to prey on your doubt of being a responsible human being, there’s no walking away from the exposure. The exposure is consciousness.

One example of the pure confusion I can find myself in would be making coffee in the morning. I question how I’m able to pour the kettle at just the right angle and not spill the water over the edge? How do I walk from the kitchen to the couch because my brain keeps telling me it would be so easy to loosen your hand grip and drop it on the floor? What’s keeping me from spilling it on my laptop once I sit down? My brain keeps asking questions I can’t find answers to. Causing anxiety and panic to seep in.

As I learned about the other forms of OCD, I grew so envious of the other various subsets, or even other certain obsessions individuals with Pure-O OCD had. To me, someone who just had an obsession of checking to make sure the door is locked, or that the stove was off, couldn’t possibly say they have it as bad as me. “Just check the door one or two times and walk away.” They don’t have to wrestle with triggers every single moment of the day if they just choose to not put themselves in the environment with the trigger.

It’s once you realize that your OCD story is personal to you, and their OCD story is personal to them, you empathize with the mutual understanding its your corresponding stories that provoke the anxiety you feel. It’s not the trigger itself, or even the obsession that determines the anxiety. It’s the obsessional worlds you have both come to live in and the way in which you’ve been victimized by the various tricks of OCD. That’s where I’ve developed true empathy. And where I’ve grown the most the last few years, is in appreciating that we each have elements of our psyche that present problems to us that others would laugh at. That doesn’t make them invalid. That doesn’t make us weird. It only makes us human.

I listened to a great podcast a month ago with author Simon Sinek and his guest, a dating coach, Matt Hussey (I’ve linked it at the end). Matt talked about how we humans have a skewed interpretation of self-love. We try to apply a ‘romantic’ love model to the way we treat ourselves, which consequentially always leaves us hurting.

Matt said it all perfectly, (this is slightly paraphrased):

“I didn’t get to go to the buffet of humans to choose who I wanted to be. I didn’t get the chance to be anyone else other than Matt Hussey. Matt Hussy though, is my responsibility. I am the only one to have been assigned, by God, to take care of the human that is Matt Hussey. And it is my job to make Matt Hussey as happy as possible, to keep him out of harms way, to keep him from unnecessary suffering, to keep him away from people that don’t have his best interest in mind. Treat Matt like you would treat other humans.”

Just think, you have spent every second of your entire life with yourself. If familiarity breeds contempt, you should have the most contempt for yourself. It’s easy to hate yourself because you know everything about yourself. You’ve been roommates with that talking consciousness thing for the entirety of your life, and it knows all your dirtiest secrets.

But Matt says to think of a self-love model like that of a parent to a child. They love them because they are theirs, not because of their attributes or looks. This child is mine, and that’s why I love them even with all their imperfections.

This is the body I’ve been given. I can’t choose the psychoanalysis composition of my body beyond a certain point. Saying I wish I was different is like asking to be 6’5’’ vs 5’7”. It’s just how I’m made. That change in perspective on self-love takes away the stigma that your condition is your fault. That you screwed up and are the source behind all your troubles. The particular psyche trait is your responsibility yes, but it’s not necessarily your fault.

To a similar point, C.S. Lewis writes in “Mere Christianity,” how as humans we only see the results from the actions other takes. We don’t know their starting point. They may have been given a “crap hand” of genetics/temperament. But God does not judge him based on his raw material but on what he has done with it What you do with that responsibility of taking care of yourself and the actions you make in spite of the inanimate obstacles that hold you back, shows your true character.

There is an old adage, established by buffalos, that says '“The quickest way to endure a storm is to walk through it.” The idea being if the storm is traveling from West to East, and you move East to West, the velocities of each entity should shorten the time spent in the tundra.

My approach to dealing with OCD was rooted in this belief. But not to good effect necessarily. In my head, the quicker I eliminated compulsions, the harder I confronted my exposures, the more discomfort I endured when trying to rewire my brain, the quicker I would get better.

But 8 years later, it’s still with me. The “pick myself up by the boot straps” and combative approach I took to healing didn’t fix the issue. Which got me thinking, that maybe the storm is actually going to be constant, and now I’m just burning myself out in the environment I find myself living in. I don’t have to hate myself for saying “I’m tired”, or “I don’t have it in me today.” I can have self-love. Instead of constantly beating myself up for having intrusive thoughts, or wishing things were different, I choose to accept and make peace with the terms of my contract on earth.

I used to think negatively of myself for using a medication to help combat the troubles of my mind. I fought as best I could to not use them. But ultimately, medication is such a moot point. I was trying to get “social points” for being medication free in a society that is frankly, is probably over prescribed SSRI. As if people would think more highly of me for being a “mental health warrior”, doing it “all natural.” Which is where I finally learned the lesson, that no matter what you ‘achieve,’ there is no reward if you break yourself to pieces doing it.

As I said, OCD preys on doubt. It takes time, but I’ve come to realize that in life, there are no guarantees, except the guarantee that holding back, living in fear from life, is a recipe for anguish.

I’ve found four approaches to coping with the anxiety that OCD brings that can help reframe your relationship to the stress, and keep you living your life. The first was taken from the book “Meditations for Mere Mortals,” where Author Oliver Burkeman writes about embracing your flaw/hindering trait at face value:

“Pick the trait that bothers you most bout yourself or your life and then ask yourself what it feels like to imagine that some version of it might dog you to the end of your days. What if I’ll always have the anxious reactions, clench in the stomach, increased heart rate to minor events that don’t warrant them? My first response is to feel crestfallen, but soon thereafter comes relief. I get to give up on that futile struggle, which means I needn’t wait for it to be won before diving into reality. Maybe I never needed to change in order to justify my existence. Maybe I was always up to the task of building a meaningful life.”

Instead of worrying about the consequences of the “what ifs”, be proud of the fact that your facing the fear and putting yourself out into the world despite being scared.

The next approach, which can be done in tandem with the previous or as a stand alone protocol, is recall moments of triumph in your past where you navigated a tricky, anxious situation. When you had initial trepidations about your ability to handle the task at hand, but navigated through the hurdles and got to the other side. Fortify you own self-confidence by reminding yourself that you have done it before. Why is this time any different?

Thirdly, you can distance yourself from the shear humor of life itself. Chris Williamson says,

“Stop taking things so seriously. No one is getting out of this game alive. In three generations no one will even remember your name. Let that give you liberation to drop your problems and find some joy. Life is inherently ridiculous, so you might as well enjoy the ride.”

Lastly, though it’s uncomfortable at first, begin to accept that should your worst imaginations, fears, and worries come true, you will still be ok. This is by far the hardest of all the tips so far. It’s staring the devil in the eyes and letting your guard down. Peeling the layers of the onion back, and feeling the pain of each failure that could come true. Thankfully, I’ve learned that the anxieties your mind creates and predicts are always much worse than the way reality actually unfolds. And remember, feelings are fleeting. The failure you feel in the moment won’t last forever.

Faith is invaluable here. Knowing that God cares not about our actions, but that our hearts are in the right place. That we have accepted our inherently flawed nature as human beings, and know we have been saved by Jesus. He already carried the weight and paid the price of our failures. Not for us to feel indebted to him, but to set us free.

Resources for More Information

Simon Sinek and Matt Hussey Podcast