Greg Proffit Writing

Category: Thinking

So You Think There Are No Dangers to Using AI Technology Like ChatGPT? …Better Look Before You Leap!
Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash

23 world-class scholars map the risk landscape

No doubt you have heard or read something about ChatGPT by now. It is being hailed and hyped by its fans as the next major tech breakthrough. Its detractors claim it has designs on ending the human race. Regardless of your own view, so-called Artificial Intelligence programs and applications that use Large Language Models (LMs) as their core training data are making breakthrough advances and enjoying rapid adoption in classroom and professional settings. But 23 authors who collaborated on the paper, Ethical and social risks of harm from Language Models, believe more work needs to be done to identify and reduce the risks of using these tools.

They published a detailed report to “help structure the risk landscape” (Weidinger et al.). In other words, their work maps out where the potential problems lie, where they come from, and where we should expect to see them in real-world usage. The authors hope tools based on LMs will be used safely, responsibly, and fairly. But in the high-tech world, whose motto is “Move fast and break things,” they realize that hopes alone won’t get the job done.

So, what is a Large Language Model?

Many people are eager to use the emerging technology based on LMs. OpenAI’s ChapGPT-3 reached the million user milestone in just 5 days!—faster than any social media platform—quicker than FaceBook, Twitter, or Insta (even faster than Netflix!). Despited the popularity, relatively few users understand the complexity behind these new systems’ proprietary curtains. Many conceive of them as having cognitive abilities reflecting human communication. But, as discussed below, they don’t.

Addressing these misconceptions is one of the report’s goals. To define LMs and computer scientist’s jargon about A.I.“conversational” systems, or “chatbots,” the authors included an appendix with definitions, a thorough bibliography (referencing more than 300 citations), and an abridged Table arranged by risk classification. These added resources inform readers who want to dive deeper.

The author’s goals

Combining their expertise across multiple academic disciplines, they presented one of the most-cited papers in the AI literature to achieve the three-part goal of:
1. Ensuring AI developers, corporations, and organizations know the perils and accept responsibility for reducing them.
2. Raising public awareness that threats exist and what steps should be taken to reduce or eliminate them, and;
3. Assisting groups working on LMs to identify the sources and solutions to the problems they’ve identified.
21 Risks… and counting

With this purpose in mind, the paper identifies and groups the risks to users and society into six categories. It labels 21 specific threats. The report names and discusses each one in detail, and where possible, the authors determine the source of the potential peril. They create hypothetical scenarios demonstrating each hazard in action to help readers and researchers see how these might play out in the real world. See the complete list here.

The carefully organized paper includes a reader’s guide, and is arranged into five parts: An Introduction, an extensive 23-page Classification of harms, a two-page Discussion, two additional pages giving Directions for future research, and a single-page Conclusion.

Where do the risks come from?

The authors explain that large language models like the Colossal Clean Crawl Corpus, WebText, (Dodge et al.), and others are fed to computers for sophisticated processing. Highly complex algorithms based on statistics and probability use an enormous layered array of expensive processing power to generate output from these systems that magically seems like normal and natural conversational language. This is where the potential problems start.

Getting better, more accurate answers depends on the mass and caliber of text data analyzed. This means the quality of the training dataset and who controls it are significant factors affecting the quality and effectiveness of “downstream” outcomes—and the introduction of risks. The authors point out that little documentation defines what constitutes “quality” to the developers working on these tech tools. They note there seems to be no regulation about who owns the training data or who is responsible for redacting and editing it for accuracy or removing potentially harmful content.

“Based on our current understanding, […] stereotyping and unfair bias are set to recur in language technologies building on LMs unless corrective action is taken.”
Laura Weidinger

When considered alongside studies that show “language utterances (e.g., tweets) are already being analyzed to predict private information such as political orientation, age, and health data….” (Weidinger et al. 20), we can begin to appreciate what might happen if the wrong parties use these technologies for unfair or harmful reasons.

But wait, do humans really think and speak this way?

Humans don’t learn language or speak based on probabilities. Only machines do. As stated above, a training set full of embedded prejudices or falsehoods will, by default, output those prejudices and errors. A training set that under or over-represents some groups will likewise output the same under and over-representations.

Humans also consider context and new knowledge when we communicate. Computers cannot do this. A computer trained before Queen Elizabeth’s death will output responses that assume she is still alive and reigning as Queen.

People who don’t work as professional political propagandists know that repeating a lie an infinite number of times won’t make it true. On the other hand, computers will simply add up all those lies—then output responses like they’re probably accurate based on the numerical count alone. Unlike humans, they cannot make qualitative judgments.

However, as the machines gain more widespread adoption, they appear to “speak” more and more naturally. Think about asking questions of Apple Computer’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. These human-computer interactions with human-sounding digital assistants create a special category of potential risks and abuses.

Remember the “guy” below?

By Lyman Hansel Gerona on Unsplash

The trouble with conversational agents

These computerized but human-sounding CAs are based on technology that makes some people overly trusting. The authors cite studies showing that some people trust them more than people—even willing to divulge private information— despite computers, conversational agents, and digital assistants having no basis for ethical thinking or action.

“The more human-like a system appears, the more likely it is that users infer or attribute more human traits and capabilities to that system.”
Laura Weidinger

These CA systems might even be perpetuating gender-based norms by utilizing “female-sounding voices.” The paper cites a report by UNESCO that raises specific concerns, saying, digital voice assistants:
- ‘reflect, reinforce, and spread gender bias;
- model acceptance and tolerance of sexual harassment and verbal abuse;
- send explicit and implicit messages about how women and girls should respond to requests and express themselves;
- make women the ‘face’ of glitches and errors that result from the limitations of hardware and software designed predominately by men; and
- force ‘synthetic’ female voices and personality to defer questions and commands to higher (and often male) authorities.
Problems may outnumber solutions

Some issues may be too difficult or expensive to overcome. For instance, the computational power necessary for training and using these LM-based programs requires large amounts of electricity. The financial and environmental expense is one broad category of risk that may make it impossible for some groups to access emerging technology effectively. There may be no commercial incentive for developers to train AI on language sets with only a few tens or hundreds of thousands of speakers. This effect will further marginalize these languages and speakers from downstream applications of AI technology widening the gap between the technological and economic “haves” and “have-nots.”

Added monetary and societal impacts could arise from the automation (and subsequent loss) of creative or knowledge-based jobs. Currently, LM programs, though improving, are error-prone, especially when considering factors like knowledge or technology “lock-in.” The applications only “know” information included in their training data. The initial ChatGPT-3 training data ended in 2021. So human monitors and fact-checkers will be needed to clean up the outputs of LM systems in sensitive applications where accuracy matters.

Still, AI is being prompted to write computer code, poetry, academic articles, proposals, court orders, and even medical treatments. Are you ready to trust your healthcare to probabilities and statistical analysis, or do you want a doctor?

These developments and the excitement (hype) accompanying the emergence of programs like ChatGPT make understanding and reducing the risks essential.

Conclusion

This important report does not discuss LMs’ potential benefits. The authors believe more research needs to be done to evaluate the benefits considering the risks they have earmarked. Anything less is irresponsible and rife with potential harm.

Although this article barely scratches the surface of the potential problems and associated risks in the full report, my hope is that you are persuaded to “look before you leap” when it comes to AI and ChatGPT. We recommend reading the entire report for a more thorough understanding.
March 20, 2023
Do Not Borrow Problems Not Yours To Solve

Photo by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash

# 97 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Do not borrow problems not yours to solve. Life will give you enough to do.

Do you know what the biggest problem facing most people is? Their biggest problem is that they don’t know what their biggest problem is. Maybe this is you.

We all know people who make it their life’s work to stick their nose into other people’s business. We’ve all got friends and family and co-workers coming out our ying-yangs telling us how to do this or that, or how to fix something or other we know good and well they have neither experience nor expertise we can rely on.

Don’t do that. Don’t borrow problems that aren’t yours to solve. You just make yourself a royal pain-in-the-ass. Life will give you enough to do just focusing on your own shit.

When you receive unsolicited advice from someone telling you what you should do about whatever, and you can see they are drowning in a cesspool of their own unsolved problems, how does that feel? Do you consider them a trusted source? Do you appreciate their concern and rush to incorporate their advice?

No Poseurs Allowed!

Hell no! You don’t want to be that guy/girl/non-binary poseur either.

Leave other people’s problems alone. Leave them alone until they ask you. The invitation to pitch in with help and advice in someone else’s affairs is a sacred trust. Don’t neglect it and don’t abuse it. Be the person who gets asked your opinion, not the kind who never gets asked yet can’t stop giving it.

One day soon, I will write a story titled, How To Know If You Are A Good Parent. The story will comprise one question and two follow up comments.

The question: Do your kids ask for your advice?

The comments: If yes, you are a good parent. If not, you need some improvement.

Now, like chord positions on a guitar neck, this story can be transposed to play in different keys. We can change it from the key of Parenting to the key of Friendship, say. We can then change the title substituting Friend for Parent and keep the content of the story exactly the same. See how nice that works?

Is this too simplified? Maybe. But then, I’m a simple guy. Let’s keep things real, shall we?

Don’t borrow problems not yours to solve. Go to work on your biggest problem. Start by figuring out exactly what that is.

We good?

July 22, 2021
How Music Affects Your Emotions Directly

Photo by Jens Thekkeveettil on Unsplash

# 23 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Music bypasses your thoughts to affect your emotions directly. It is unique among art forms for this quality as far as I’ve discovered. Take care then, what you are inviting to stir your emotions.

Music affects emotions and brain responses in emotional centers regardless of lyrical content, or whether the pieces are solely instrumental. There is a body of brain imaging and clinical proof that music bypasses your thoughts to affect your emotions directly.

This topic is worthy of a book or a doctoral thesis on its own. I will limit my commentary to calling your attention to the facts stated. Of note is that one study linked above showed that hearing sad music provoked some people to deeper levels of sadness.

“… the study found that for some people, sad music can cause negative feelings of profound grief.”
~ Memorable Experiences with Sad Music—Reasons, Reactions and Mechanisms of Three Types of Experiences published in Plos One

Emotions usually spring from thoughts

Emotions usually arise as the products of thoughts, and independent of willing them into existence. A person can choose to be happy, but cannot by willing it, make it so directly. One cannot will happiness. One must first think happy thoughts… or listen to happy music. Music affects your emotions directly, not needing the mind to act as conduit.

I am listening to jazz by Art Pepper as I write this. This is the first time I’ve immersed myself in an hour of his playing. I am familiar with him as a jazz musician only because I’ve read references to him in some Barry Eisler books, and I’ve heard snippets of tunes while watching the Bosch detective series derived from Michael Connelly’s novels. (You can stream Bosch on Amazon Prime Video).

Having no familiarity with Pepper’s music, I am enjoying his fluid, sensual, upbeat, even cheerful jazz clarinet and saxophone as the perfect accompaniment to writing. There is nothing melancholy or depressing about it. It is urgent and energetic—sometimes staccato, phrased like well punctuated sentences. He plays woodwinds the way a hummingbird flies, darting here and there—never still for long. There is nothing angry, and certainly no rage. I find myself carried along, fully engaged with the virtuosity of expression, the coolness of style that draws me in like a whisper rather than repelling me like a shout.

Ray Bradbury said the best jazz musicians play as if they don’t believe in death. An hour or so in and I know Pepper is an unbeliever, too. Listening to him I don’t believe in death, either. Rather, I feel smarter, more sophisticated and cosmopolitan—more vibrant and alive. It would be the perfect soundtrack for a dinner party, or an art crawl. Perhaps to serenade a gathering of happy, comfortable friends as they sample wines, cheeses, and chocolates. I like it. It makes me feel good and I will add Pepper’s jazz to my rotation.

You have your favorite music. Ask yourself what it does for you. How does it make you feel? Do you have a “go to” band or song?

Music as mental health medicine

I have a life-rule not included on my 99 Life Tips list, but it would easily be the hundredth tip. Never, ever drink when you’re down. That, too, is a story in its own right. You should, however, have some healthy alternatives for self-medicating your mental health. I find there is nothing better than music. The studies linked above cite the therapeutic value of music as well. Music affects your emotions. Just take care to recognize which emotions you’re inviting yourself to feel when you make your choice of music to listen to.

“Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything, take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar, make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don’t be sad, if it was a straight mind you had,
We wouldn’t have known you all these years”
~Traffic: Dear Mr. Fantasy

July 20, 2021
Try Not To Learn Anything New Today — It’s Harder Than It Looks

How I imagine my mind. (How’d that girl with the vinyl backpack get in here?) Photo by Darwin Vegher on Unsplash

# 18 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: ”Try to learn something new every day,” is often included on lists like this. Instead, try not to. By trying not to, you’ll become aware of how much you learn everyday without even trying, you just have to be awake enough to catch it.

I enjoy “life-tips” lists. Invariably, they advise us to try to learn something new each day. I read those words and hear Yoda in my head, “There is no Try! There is only Do or Do Not!”

Still, my tip condenses to this: Try not to learn anything new today. I’m a professional non-conformist. I’m not plagiarizing that usual worn-out tip. Instead, we’ll try the opposite.

I’m sure I must have let some days pass without learning anything new. The likelihood of that seems like a reasonable assumption given a span of some 15K days. But I’d be stunned if I’ve failed to learn something in more than 1% of them. The other 99% of the time, new facts and information falls on me, follows me home, and piles up.

If you’re awake, you learn without trying. If. You’re. Awake.

I’m not going all woo-woo metaphysical here. You don’t have to be the Dalai Lama, or Buddha himself. You’ll learn stuff if you remain just reasonably alert and half sober.

But, I’m contradicting my tip, which is to dis-courage your attempts to learn. Here, I’ll put it in bold letters.

You’re supposed to try NOT to learn

A confession. This is the only rhetorically facetious tip of the entire 99 on my list. How’s that for some purple adjectives? (ProWritingAid and Grammarly are gonna love that). And it is the only one I don’t practice regularly. In fact, I’ve never practiced this one at all. I’ve never made the active effort not to learn something for even one day.

And see, I just proved the point of my tip. You just learned several things in that one paragraph without trying. You learned some things about me. And you gained the bonus knowledge that even pro writing software doesn’t have a sarcasm or satire mode. See?

Comic Relief

I’m curious about all kinds of things. One of my favorite comics of all times is a scene in a doctor’s office. In the office, we see a serious looking doctor wearing a lab coat, stethoscope draped around his neck. He is peering intently at a chart and and standing beside his patient, who is seated on the exam table. The patient is a worried looking cat, brow knit with anxiety. Tension is etched on both faces. The doctor speaks, “I’m afraid it’s curiosity.”

Cute, huh? I’m curious to know. I’ve got a motor to learn. I’ve got more questions than answers and the more answers I get the more questions they breed.

As a writer, I’ve heard of an affliction called writer’s block in which the writer is stuck and has nothing to write about. It’s hard to imagine. That must be the same feeling as having nothing to live about. I have way more ideas than time. Way more time than talent.

Most likely, I’ll just keep on learning and letting ideas and information pile up in my mind where all the rooms look like an episode of Hoarders. See, my advice is not for everybody. It just won’t work for me.

But your mileage may vary. So, you go ahead and try not to learn anything new today. Feel free to return and comment below with all the ways your efforts failed. Other readers may learn something. Oh, shoot!

July 17, 2021
Don’t Adopt Every Stray—What Things You Adopt Have A Way Of Becoming Your Life

Photo by Alvan Nee on Unsplash

# 84 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: You are not meant to adopt every stray (thought, belief, person, animal, opportunity) that shows up in your life. Choose well.

The wind blows things into and out of our lives. These things take the form of thoughts, beliefs, people, even animals, and sometimes opportunities. Just because something shows up doesn’t mean it should be picked up. Some things are better left alone to blow right on by. Don’t adopt every stray. You aren’t meant to.

The Inbox of Life

I like simple analogies. Viewing the detritus that life blows in is like viewing the daily contents of my email Inbox. Stuff blows in. I scan for relevance, responsibility, or refusal. Some of the items I must have asked to show up there. This is apparently the case. I recognize that the me that asked to receive information about every cheap Caribbean travel opportunity is a different me than the one opening my email this morning.

This revelation creates its own opportunity. I can unsubscribe and save myself the little mental distraction that accompanies every email subject line. (You know that many of these emails have highly trained professional writers whose sole aim is to create irresistible subject lines to trigger you to open the email, don’t you?)

But I’ve digressed. Although this digression was intentional. I digressed about email believing it to be a metaphorical application to which most can relate. The existence of an email address virtually guarantees spam in the same way that staying alive guarantees stray stuff showing up in your Life’s Inbox. Some of that stuff you invited, some you did not. You need not open it all. You need to archive and save even less. Some of it is as dangerous to your life as a virus-laden, malware-infected, trojan horse of embedded code hidden in an email about ED could be to your computer. Best to leave it lie.

Where do thoughts come from?

The element of my advice I find most universally applicable is in the handling of stray thoughts and beliefs. No one being honest can tell you where all your thoughts come from. Are they self-generated? Are they completely random? Did they come from the far side of the Universe? From God? From the devil? No one is sure.

Meditation is a great practice for so many reasons, not the least of which is that is can convince you how involuntary most of your thinking is. Try it for five minutes and see how like a wave machine with no off switch your mind is. Thoughts just show up, because…

But like the neighbor’s cat, or the stray that habitually shows up on your doorstep, you don’t have to buy a little cat bed at the PetSmart and put out a saucer of milk for the stray. Unless you’re my son, then you do. You have to buy one of those. But you can be much less accommodating with 95% of your stray thoughts. Learn to unapologetically shoo them away. Kick if you must.

You may become what you adopt

Don’t adopt every stray. Every thing you invite in to your life has the potential to, like a virus or piece of malware, spread and take over your life. Some things you’ve taken in as a past self have become your present self. Think of that. Choose wisely, friends.

July 14, 2021
Sequential Thinking—The Backwarder We Go, The Forwarder We Get

Air-Traffic Controllers are masters of sequential thinking (Shutterstock Image: Licensed to Author)

# 70 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Sequential thinking is a life-skill that must be practiced and mastered over a lifetime.

Sequential thinking is the kind that arranges knowledge and actions into ordered steps.

It can also ease the fear associated with uncertainty. Each step taken towards unknown answers to perplexing questions follows and builds upon answers of which we are certain—having learned them by answering previous questions.

This kind of thinking shows up everywhere, but the construction trades are a good example. Foundations before floor systems. Floors before walls. Walls before ceilings and roofs.

Air-traffic controllers use sequential thinking to do their job. The controller takes lots of data into account to organize and arrange a sequence of one-at-a-time landings onto a single runaway. The perfect picture of linear, sequential order.

Humans usually experience time sequentially—as a linear series of causal events and their effects (one thing causes another which causes another… ad infinitum), connected one to another like the cars of a train.

We experience the slow unfolding of time, living it forward, understanding it backward, as Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, put it.

And while there are a variety of thinking modes, each with its own characteristics—making them suitable to grapple with different kinds of problems; sequential thinking seems to have application to problems of all types.

The Backwarder we go the Forwarder we get

Sequential thinking takes two forms. One works backwards, the other forwards.

The first works backwards from a desired goal, thinking through the correct order of steps needed to reach that goal. Careful thinking of this type will prevent mishaps like installing sheet rock on walls before the electricians have wired them.

The other type moves forward by asking a series of questions. Progress requires answering the first question before moving to the next. In this way, the answers to simple questions link, building upon one another, to solve a more complex problem.

[If I live in an apartment and I want to own a dog, what are the things I will need to know in order to make that desire a reality? The size of the dog, the breed, the pet fee, etc.]

Or if I want to write for a living—I’ll need to determine the things that are necessities for that to happen. There may not be as many variables as landing airplanes, but entertaining abstract thoughts about the beauty of written words and how cool it would be to live in Paris or Spain like Hemingway won’t get the job done.

The Takeaway

Is sequential thinking the best way to think? No, I wouldn’t say that. But it fits the model of time as we experience it. And frankly, we’re all practicing a semblance of it, since we can only think of one thing at a time anyway. So, no matter your habitually preferred thinking style, at some point you’ll need to plan how to deliver to us what you’ve been thinking about. So, it’s a skill worth working on.

Thus endeth the sequence of words. Thanks for playing.

July 10, 2021
Wisdom Is The Choice of The Best End and The Best Means for Achieving It…to be continued

Antigua, Mamora Bay Sunset (Photo by Author)

# 78 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Wisdom is also the application of the best means for the most valuable ends. See # 77 above for initial thoughts regarding wisdom.

In keeping with the string of tips and stories about intelligence, truth, and wisdom, this is the reader’s digest summation. Wisdom chooses the best end, then achieves it by the best methods.

Easier said than done.

Getting lost in the weeds of esoteric ideas is no benefit if you want to be wise (and who doesn’t want to be?). Simple answers and concepts are the most helpful to get you and keep you on track.

The Best End

You may wish to grab a Venti-sized latté while you ponder what this means to you. It will take a while.

What is the mainspring of your life? What is your ultimate reason, purpose, goal? Why do you do what you do? What is it you’re hoping for?

The ultimate end of a person’s life dictates their life, morality, their praiseworthiness or guilt. It is the motive behind every decision. It is the mission statement, even if unspoken, deeply buried in the unconscious.

Wisdom is the choice of the best (most valuable) end.

Which is what exactly? What is the correct answer?

America’s founding documents declare it to be, “the pursuit of happiness”—but is the pursuit, or the happiness—the end?

If happiness; is that the most valuable end? Is your happiness more valuable than mine? It may be to you, but when weighed on a universal scale? Are they not equal?

And if that has you scratching your head, assuming a belief in God, is your happiness more valuable than God’s? And are you more deserving of happiness than God is?

That will keep the mental wheels spinning a while.

Lest we digress too much, a repetition is in order. Wisdom is the choice of the best end.

Oh, that’s easy, you say. Lots of money is the best, most valuable end. But is it? Is money more valuable than time? What is an extra hour at the end of your life going for on the open market nowadays? A day? A year? Pretty pricey if you can find a vendor.

Well, ok then, time is more valuable, you agree. But is time more valuable than health, or peace of mind? Would any reader wish to live for eternity with a tormented mind? Or with a debilitating illness?

No? Didn’t think so.

This explains why philosopher types are so vilified. So damn many questions!

Still, you must choose a worthy end of your own if you hope to be wise. Your choice of end shows your wisdom—or lack thereof. A hint: You’ve already chosen an end regardless of whether you know what it is. We all have. But you can move off the default choice, which is to live entirely with regard for your own momentary pleasures as fully as possible, to some more valuable and well-considered purpose.

The Best Way To Get There

This is going to have to wait for another treatment of its own. You’ve got plenty to work on.

July 9, 2021
Ends In Themselves Hide Everywhere In Plain Sight

The End Is Achieved photo by Author.

When you stretch out your feet to the incoming tide, lazily reclined in a beach chair, and the sun is a hand’s width above the water on the horizon, and the wavelets are chasing each other up the sand, and the egrets and sandpipers skitter nervously away as if they’ll melt if the water touches them, your mind isn’t occupied with what’s next..

You soak in the moment as you soak in the sun. This…this is the reason you’re here. It’s what you came for. It’s the end sought.

For most of us, ends as idyllic as that described above are rarities. They are valuable in proportion to their scarcity. Beach folk may no longer hear the murmur-Roar of the waves tumbling in. They may take these marvels of sight and sound for granted, because they’re no longer novel. And familiarity breeds contempt.

But what can we do, regardless of where we pass our lives, to extract the sublime from the familiar, eliminate the contempt, and cease taking anything for granted?

In that light, find small “mini-ends” throughout your day. Identify the ends in themselves. Look for them every time you drink a cup of coffee or tea. Savor every conversation with a loved one. Similarly, let each meal exemplify the opportunity to reflect on more than transience. Sure, you’ve had many meals. You anticipate others. But, stop to appreciate that by some miracle you’re having this one, right now. It’s the only time you’ll partake of this meal. That’s a worthy end in itself.

That mindset and it’s objective is what we cultivate by the practice of awareness, or “mindfulness”. To do so is to fill the mind with what is right in front of it. Extract the precious by appreciation of the obvious. Discover what is too often disguised by plain sight, and realize that if you’re still conscious of being conscious, things could always be a whole lot worse.

Find these moments hidden in plain sight

Acquaint yourself with moments from which you want nothing else. Recognize and log in your awareness each time you recognize a moment to which you would add nothing to make it better, or sweeter, or richer. The more these inner promptings bring you into the present, the better you will come to know your true self.

You’ll see that the good life isn’t about waiting for the big, rare thing to come along. Rather, it’s seeing and appreciating the good already present in the so-called mundane grind of life. And when you can maximize happiness from the everyday, you’re living a rare life indeed

June 23, 2021
What Would It Look Like Fixed? A Life-Changing Question

What would it look like fixed? Probably not like this…(Dreamstime Image: licensed to the author)

# 60 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: You cannot solve any problem without having a clear picture of the solution in mind. Ask, ”what would it look like fixed?” borrowed from David Allen.

Because this is one of my favorite questions, and has been so life-changing for me, I secured the domain whatwoulditlooklikefixed.com a few years ago, where I will eventually build out a self-help site based around this idea. I’m happy to share it here with you.

I was introduced to the concept in David Allen’s book: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I highly recommend the book if you want to dive deeper into the whole system of personal productivity and time management Allen espouses.

Answering what would it look like fixed has become the starting point of my entire problem-solving heuristic.

The premise is simple. A problem arises. You want to fix it. So far, so good…

But fixing problems requires answers to two questions:

1- What is the true problem? (This is a book in its own right)

2- What would absence of the problem look like, or conversely, what would it look like fixed?

Until you answer these two questions problems manifest will remain problems unsolved

How often have you set out to fix a problem without first discovering what was really bothering you, or having a definite, clear idea of what needed to happen to not feel bothered by it anymore? If you’ve done this, you know how frustrating it can be to multiply effort using the wrong means for the wrong ends with no clear plan. (Which probably describes the typical workday of millions of people). And maybe this too accurately describes normal life for a lot of people as well.

So, since you certainly want to avoid adding frustration to the feelings you already have about your issue. Do the hard work, the meaningful work, up front. The hard work is actually mental, involving thinking and imagination. You’re creating a world where your problem doesn’t exist. In this world, you vanquished the burden. It’s gone. Exterminated. Kaput.

This picture gives you both a target state to achieve and the inspiration to achieve it. Don’t worry yet on what will have to happen to make this vision come to pass. That’s another part of the problem-solving process. Without a clearly defined destination, further steps in the process are tantamount to walking in circles.

From Concept to Concrete

This is how, precisely how, all the man-made reality that you look around you and see, gets from concept to concrete. Things go from abstract idea to tangible reality by answering some variation of this one question.

What would it look like fixed?

If you want to solve a problem and don’t have this idea clearly in mind, how will you know when you’re done? How will you gauge success at eliminating the problem. Do you see the dilemma? Unless you can clearly state, in specific language, ”This problem will be fixed when ______________.” happens, all efforts will amount to pushing in the clutch on a car, stomping the accelerator, and redlining the engine in a screaming cloud of smoke and fury, but the car goes nowhere.

Instead, do the hard work up front. Get a clear picture of exactly what fixed would look like, then use the appropriate means to reach that desired end. (A subject for another day).

June 16, 2021
Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think About You

Woman shamed by the accusations of others. Her feelings about herself shaped by their opinions about her. (Adobe Stock image: licensed by author)

# 53 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: It is a trap to care too much what other people think about you. There are only 2 or 3 people who matter, and one of them is you.

Consider the following sources

Mark Manson, in his excellent book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, tackles this one head on. The whole book is dedicated to the proposition that you should stop caring what other people think about you.

2650 years ago, around 625 B.C., another writer with a surly attitude, Jeremiah, said this:

”This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD.”
~Jeremiah 17:5

He flat out called it a curse to trust in the opinions of others. He said this amounted to a heart that ”departed from the Lord.”

These sources may not be convincing enough. So, if this malady has you trapped, here are ten great quotes to ponder for further encouragement to freedom from other’s opinions.

I’ve read Manson’s book. And, I’ve also read Jeremiah. I have profound appreciation for the weeping prophet, who warned Israel of the consequences of their apostasy, and then stood and wept as the consequences unfolded. He didn’t gloat and say, “I told you so.” And, I also like all ten quotes I linked. But my all time favorite is:

”Woe to you when all the people speak well of you…”
~ Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 6:26

Granted, you may place no stock whatsoever in Biblical, or scriptural authority. I do not fault you for that. But consider, if all people spoke well of you, and none thought badly, that would mean you are satisfactory to even the most despicable. No? That being the case, what exactly have you gained that is so precious?

Johnny Cash had it this way:

”It is good to know who hates you, and it is good to be hated by the right people.”
~Johnny Cash

Where does self-worth come from?

I could cite sources indefinitely. But if you struggle with this, it is real to you. I sympathize. Really. My girlfriend worries what complete strangers think of her when they are driving the car behind her and she is a little slow to move when a traffic light changes from red to green. She is kind and does not want to be an imposition. This inherent kindness is at least somewhat commendable.

But we’re talking about those whose identity and sense of self worth comes from the hoped for good opinion of others. There is nothing commendable about that. That is a trap, a curse, an undesirable end (even if attained), and not a good achievement at all. The trap is a mindset that makes your worth conditional upon your performance and its perception by others. To escape this trap, you must stop caring what other people think about you. You must see your worth as a person is more than a perfect, impeccable performance, or the meeting of expectations others have imposed upon you.

Brené Brown writes about the dynamics of all this, including how to develop what she calls, ”shame resilience,” in her excellent book, The Gifts of Imperfection. I highly recommend it for her in-depth analysis born of her years studying and analyzing shame and our responses to it.

Examples to consider

But, to pursue the topic further here, let me ask you, is it more important to be honest, or for someone to think you’re honest? If you are an honest person, you are honest regardless of who believes it, right? And vice versa, if you are dishonest, you remain so regardless of your ability to coax a good opinion from others. Truth, especially truth about character, is unswayed by belief.

Let me also ask, have you ever changed your mind and opinion about anyone in your life? Isn’t it possible you felt one way about them, learned something new, and now you feel a different way? This happens to me so often, I just assume it happens to most people. This predisposition to change notions is enough to make me look for emotional stability elsewhere than the opinions of others.

And finally, when considering practical examples, do you suppose those whose good opinion you crave have no flaws and imperfections of their own? Are you the only person beset by occasional errors? If other people have faults, weaknesses, and flaws, their opinions will also be faulty, weak, and flawed, just as yours are at times. This is universally true for each of us. You may want to treat this fact as a fact, and in so doing, devalue those oft flawed opinions accordingly.

Self Esteem is the Approval You Give Yourself – It does not come from Others

Self-esteem by definition is the esteem you give to yourself. It is the respect, regard, admiration, and approbation you account to your own credit. Many, especially those who suffer from the topic of this article, are confused as to its nature and are actually searching for Other-Esteem. This would be the esteem granted by those outside your self. Self-esteem is born of good character. It is strengthened each time you do the right thing. If you want to build yours, simply do the next right thing you know to do. Keep doing this. Soon, you’ll know yourself to be the kind of person who can know what is right to do and do it. It is the most highly subjective, relative, and individualized of all the emotions.

Life is too short to knowingly live wrong. I enjoy the challenge of being and becoming the kind of person I can respect. I personally refuse to live with a bad conscience. If I have wronged someone, I make it right at any expense. By the same token, I refuse to let someone else’s opinion of me intrude into that inner sanctum. I refuse to allow another’s bad opinion or me, give me an undeserving bad or bothered conscience. I stopped caring what other people think about me a long time ago.

Whose Opinion Should You Care About?

I care what I think about me. The degree of care I have for anyone else’s opinion is based entirely upon whether they have, by proven demonstration, shown that they consistently and ardently want the best for me, for my own sake, and not for what they stand to gain. There is about 1 other person in my life currently who fits that description and meets that criterion. Possibly 2, but that fluctuates, and if their opinion about me changed, I would be sad, but not crushed. It has changed before and changed back again. Which is to say, no one’s opinions are guaranteed to remain stable indefinitely.

And I care what God thinks. Not because I believe I can behave well enough to get him to love me more. I cannot. Neither can I behave badly enough to get him to stop loving. But, I care what He thinks because He’s proven that He wants what is best for me, and that I am too shortsighted and ignorant to know what that is at all times.

Opinions Can Encourage You Without Owning You

The one caveat that I will admit to is this. I know that I am my own worst critic. While I generally like myself, and as I’ve stated, I endeavor to keep a clear conscience, I am hard on my creative products. Without the encouragement of friends, and even strangers, I might be too discouraged to continue the attempt to create content that may provide value to some. So, I allow room for the encouragement to continue those efforts.

But let me be plain. I may care what people think about what I do, or what I say, or what I write. But I could not, in general, care any less about what people think of who I am. This works for me, it keeps me from being trapped by the opinions of others. I don’t seek esteem from that quarter. And since I don’t seek it there, I’m never disappointed not to receive it from there. Your mileage may vary, but I highly encourage you to stop caring what other people think about you. You’ll thank me. You’ll appreciate me. But I won’t really care if you do or not.

June 10, 2021