If doing your Tiny Trust Builder feels impossible today, it’s not tiny enough.
Write one paragraph, not one blog post.
Write one sentence, not one paragraph.
Write one word, not one sentence.
Write one letter, not one word.
Write whatever feels achievable to you, until you arrive at something you can do every day.
Think smaller, until you notice the insurmountable suddenly feels achievable.
I can say I want to run a marathon, write a book, or have a successful career – which doesn’t mean I’ll actually end up running a marathon, writing a book, or having a successful career.
But if I’m serious about it, it does mean I’ll take daily steps towards that goal – daily actions that will change my identity.
Can I live with the present-day implications of my uncertain future visions?
If I don’t know yet if I’ll ever write the book – will these daily actions still be fulfilling to me?
Will they make me happier?
Will I be happy with the person I become by taking such daily actions?
Do these daily actions contribute to a fulfilling emotional, mental, physical, and social life?
If not, am I willing to make emotional, mental, physical, or social sacrifices?
This is a choice everyone makes for themselves.
But I don’t want to make my present day miserable for an uncertain vision of the future I don’t even know will happen.
You’ll end up in the season of distraction.
And then you’ll be back again.
You’ll end up in the season of rest.
And then you’ll be back again.
You’ll end up in the season of turmoil.
And then you’ll be back again.
And the more you go “back again” to a path, the stronger that default path becomes.
Choose it wisely.
Your anger is real. But you are not your anger.
Your worries are real. But that doesn’t mean it’s rooted in reality.
You aren’t scared. You feel scared.
You are not your emotions. Emotions are not your identity.
I like to journal in the morning.
But if I’d journal in the evening, this is what I’d ask myself:
“Were my actions today actions of the person I choose to be? Or were they actions of a person driven by old patterns, habits and limiting beliefs?”
“Did my actions bring me closer to where I choose to go? Or did they keep me stuck in a place I really don’t want to be anymore?”
“Did my actions make me feel good about myself? Or did they make me resent myself?”
What can I do differently tomorrow?
What do we do when AI can cobble together in seconds essays that take us hours (or days) to write – not even counting years of practice?
Maybe it just raises the bar for us – requiring is to make new work that continues to stand out from AI-generated content.
As things stand, that’s still possible.
But what happens when the bar is set so high that our human brains can’t jump over it anymore, even with a lifetime of practice?
When technology and AI outpace us and we can’t be the best, smartest, fastest, strongest on the planet anymore – will we still care about our economic output?
When results have become irrelevant, what are the things I will still want to do?
Maybe we’ll rediscover value in our actions themselves and the pleasure and pain they make us feel – happy, sad, useful, worthless, brimming with purpose, overflowing with self-hatred…?
Will I still write just because I enjoy writing, even if AI could write a better-researched, more insightful book than I ever could?
Will I still learn a language just because learning a language makes me feel good, even if I could use an instant translation device to talk to anyone in the world?
Will I still spend my days in an office cubicle if that’s a painful prospect?
An era of soul-searching is coming.
