Independence and isolation is often confused. We can be isolated from the world, free from responsibility and call ourselves independent. But independence isn’t free of responsibility. It’s hand and hand.
Responsibility is easy to ignore when the setting is invisible. For instance, your children’s children—it’s easy to ignore this future generation because there is no voice for them. It isn’t there time. It’s our time. Yet…its a choice(and responsibility) to still care.
Today, scrolling on your phone for eight hours a day is normal. As a kid, that wasn’t normal. In fact, it was unheard of. It’s easy to discount how much “normal” has changed and how it will change again going forward.
Anchors keep us attached to one point. If we are refusing to let go of them, we can’t possibly move on.
I like to imagine what happens to ideas when turned upside down. For example, what if instead of “bitter-sweet,” we think of it as “sweet-bitter?” Our experience in life is more of the latter when you think about it.
So here is one for you:
What ideas do we have faith in?
Now, flip this around:
What ideas have faith in us?
It is almost paradoxical in that ideas seem to function becuase we believe in them, while at the same time they need us, we need them too. (Hope comes to mind first.)
When someone asks me if I’m handy, I respond, “Of course, I just outsource everything, though.” The reality is, I am not that great with tools. Recently, we had a flood in our laundry room and basement. The damage was extensive but not as bad as it should have been. When talking to insurance, I got the compliment that I acted quickly and am more handy than I give myself credit for. That one compliment was enough to give me confidence that I had permission to trust myself. I’m still not great with tools, but perhaps better than all the deficiencies I can see.
Researching is a skill. Like any skill, you have this mental muscle you have to exercise. Simply asking Google or AI for the answer deteriorates this muscle. AI is a tool to INFORM decisions, not make them (unless we let them.)
Consequently, we begin to turn over decision-making to technology and remove ourselves from responsibility. The path forward that is opening (while many are closing) is more opportunity to lead and initiate. Not less. To make judgment calls. To act without a clear picture. Because the next chapter has perhaps never looked more murky, so what is ahead? (To state the obvious: we have never been here before, and no one knows what happens next.)
P.S. The point isn’t to get the quickest answer (we already have that tech to get that). We do the reading to find the best answer.
Truth becomes more scarce when we turn over moral judgment. In a world where the noise is louder than ever before, we have to take the time to decipher and decode what is being said more than ever. We have a bad habit of overreacting to the worst-case scenario, which amplifies the noise. If we are going to use AI to remove decisions (instead of enabling them), we are on the wrong path to finding the truth.
We can choose between high expectations, hope, and possibilities. But not all three.
When hope is high and expectations are low, we open the door to possibility.
When you flip it: high expectations and low hope—possibilities will dwindle.
Possibilities must be detached from our expectations.
Not long ago, you could get in on the ground with AI for thousands of dollars. And in a matter of a few short years, the capital needed is beyond what 99.9% of the population can afford. The biggest reason is the equipment and computing power required to push the technology forward. And it isn’t just AI. An industry that touts itself for living in mom’s basement and working in the garage to build billion-dollar businesses—those days might be gone in tech. The problem with projects of this magnitude is that you lose so much in developing talent when access to the technology is limited.
Josh Allred's Blog 