A Learning a Day

I was sprinting toward a gate, trying to make a connection. Our first flight had landed ninety minutes late, leaving ten minutes to make it. With a minute to spare, four other passengers and I made it to the gate, out of breath.

That’s when the gate agent decided to get snarky. Complaints, comments, no interest in helping. Eventually a supervisor walked over and she asked if she should process us.

Lucky for us, the supervisor knew the context and said yes.

It stuck with me because of how circumstantial power like that is. For a few minutes, this one person stood between five or six of us and our flight, through no fault of ours. And in that moment, she chose snark over empathy and chose to get in our way instead of getting out of it.

It is worth remembering for all of us for the next time we’re the ones holding that kind of circumstantial power that impacts someone else.

I was talking to a friend recently on the cusp of a big career decision, going back and forth on it. We discussed a lesson I picked up making my own version of this decision.

It’s tempting to use such conversations to seek validation. But nobody has as much information about your situation as you do, and in your heart of hearts, you usually already know which way you’re leaning.

So use the conversation differently. Ask people to stress-test the assumptions underneath the decision, not to bless the decision itself.

If you’re leaning toward yes, use that to do a premortem, go in with eyes open about everything that could go wrong.

If you’re leaning toward no, write out exactly what you’re assuming will hold true by staying.

Either way, you come out ahead. If it goes well, the premortem helps you get through the inevitable bad days. If it goes badly, you’ve learned something that makes your next decision better.

Outside of a partner, the only opinion that really matters on a career decision is the one belonging to the person who has to live with it. That’s you.

A good friend recently lost her father, and she shared a beautiful, poignant account of his final weeks.

He’d gone in for a checkup after some discomfort. The doctors found stage four cancer, already in the bone. A few days, maybe a few weeks if he was lucky. He asked one question: how sure are you?

Very sure, they said. In that case, he told them, no treatment. His daughter had some good bottles of wine. He’d rather spend his time enjoying those.

Then the doctors mentioned one option that might buy him a few extra weeks or months. He asked if he’d still be able to travel, to make it back to his hometown unassisted. Possibly, they said. He said he’d try it.

A couple of days in, he called his kids together and told them it wasn’t working. And instead of dwelling on that, he spent the time helping them sort out the logistics that would carry them through the months after he was gone.

Next, he said his goodbyes to them the next day. To his nineteen-year-old grandson, he said that when he looked back on his life, what he remembered most fondly were his adventures, the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t. He told him to make it a priority to have as many as he could.

Then he went to sleep, and his organs shut down one by one. As he loved science, my friend read to him about the miracle of engineering that is the human body. As she read to him, she saw it slowly diverting all energy from failing organ to the brain and finally the heart.

He passed the next day.

His grandson said it reminded him of the ending of the tale of the three brothers in the Harry Potter books.

And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.” — The Tale of the Three Brothers

The youngest brother, after a long and full life, finally takes off his cloak of invisibility, passes it to his son, and greets Death as an old friend, going with him gladly, as an equal.

Indeed.

It’s tempting, when you’re surrounded by people who all seem to be running the same race, to compare where you are against where they are.

But you don’t know their starting point.

You also don’t know where their finish line actually is.

And you have no idea if their path is a sprint, a marathon, or a cross-country run.

Some days you’re the pigeon. Some days you’re the statue.

I remembered this one at the end of a recent statue day. As I’ve learned over and over, the best thing to do on those days is head to bed.

And try again tomorrow.

Bill Perkins, in his book Die with Zero, has a different take on the ant and the grasshopper.

In the original tale, the ant spends all summer storing food for winter while the grasshopper plays. When winter comes, the grasshopper has to crawl back to the ant, who takes him in. The lesson is usually about the importance of frugality and foresight.

Perkins pushes back on that. We overemphasize saving and forget that the entire point of saving is to eventually enjoy what you saved. The ant had a point. But so did the grasshopper.

The answer isn’t either extreme. It’s finding the middle, where you save enough and still spend it on being alive while you’re alive.

“Good times become good memories, but bad times become good lessons.” | Uncle Iroh, Avatar: The Last Airbender

The simplicity of this one made me smile.

One lesson I keep coming back to: a light dinner, something closer to 60% full than 80%, with fewer carbs where I can manage it, followed by a mile or mile-and-a-half walk, wrapped up at least two hours before bed.

It just feels so much better than any alternative.

One downside of AI being everywhere is the sheer volume of AI-generated crap now flooding feeds and workplaces alike.

I don’t spend much time on social feeds, but I hear about the challenges of keeping AI slop out. But I definitely have seen it in the workplace.

And here’s the thing: past a certain point, it’s easy to spot. There are patterns. Even at their best, models lack judgment and context.

The lesson for me is that AI is a power tool, and like any power tool, it takes skill to use well. You cannot outsource your thinking to it, and you cannot expect it to have good judgment when you’re solving intricate problems (at least not yet).

Where it shines: getting you past the blank page with a rough first draft, acting as a thought partner when you give it real context, brainstorming, analyzing data quickly, and editing through iterations of your own work.

Where it fails you: the moment you think you can hand something off and skip the thinking yourself.

Don’t outsource your thinking to AI.

“The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end, that’s all there is.”
— Mr. Carson, Downton Abbey

I’ve never watched the show, but I thought this was beautiful.

Strip away everything else we chase, careers, money, recognition, and what’s actually left at the end is what we remember and who we remember it with.

Maybe that’s the only scoreboard worth keeping.

(H/T: Die with Zero by Bill Perkins)