When we presume to lie for the benefit of others, we have decided that we are the best judges of how much they should understand about their own lives—about how they appear, their reputations, or their prospects in the world.

The better life you absolutely can build isn’t going to be brought to you by ChatGPT but by your own steady uphill clawing and through careful management of your own expectations. You live here. This is it.

Tippett:

What do you mean when you write that everyone is an artist?

O’Donohue:

I mean that everyone is involved, whether they like it or not, in the construction of their world. So it’s never as given as it actually looks; you’re always shaping it and building it. And I feel that from that perspective, that each of us is an artist.

“Limit everything to the essential but do not remove the poetry.”

— Dieter Rams, quoted in Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams

By definition, good enough is good enough. If the spec isn’t what you need, change the spec. But perfect is unattainable and perfect is a place to hide.