After Covid, we realised that communities and relationships are important. Yet, today, we are at record high loneliness.

I don’t believe accessibility is the problem. There are churches, third spaces, hobby groups and even online groups. Costs are close to zero.

Did we get tricked by social media to scroll our problems away?

And maybe lose our social skills?

Or… maybe just maybe we are in a pseudo community? A community that gets together, but cares about their common self-interest, instead of each other.

Being known takes effort. It’s more than just showing up. More than just one pastor or one community builder.

It takes honest, awkward conversations that we don’t want to have.

As Scott Peck points out, if you’re prioritising niceness over being fully known, you’re in a pseudo community.

What have you stopped yourself from saying to keep the peace?

Is that worth it?

80% of all US jobs don’t make it to the internet.

And those leftover jobs that you apply for, it turns out that some of them have already pre-determine candidates. They are not even looking at your resume.

Ghost job.

There you are… being rejected over and over again.

You are rejected not because you are unqualified. But because someone already beat you to the job.

Hiring is a huge undertaking that involves advertising, filtering and interviewing. Time and effort, while the rest of the team are working overtime to fill the gap.

And if you pick the wrong person, both of you have to start again and all the effort goes to waste.

If you know someone who can do the job and is available, you would pick them any day. And if HR insist that you must interview other candidates, you will put up a show.

The question isn’t how you can be more qualified. But how can you be someone that the boss wants to hire before the job listing?

One good place to start might be buried in this book.

Only dead fish go with the flow.

Obviously, you’re not a fish and not dead. You’re anxious about your trip, your wedding, your life?

You want it to be perfect. But why is your husband not worrying? Perhaps all he cares about is being together with the love of his life, not the perfect wedding.

Why are you stressing about booking the hotels when your sister simply trusts it will sort itself out? Perhaps she has had a different experiences from previous trips.

Organise action created schools, hospitals and cities.

Nature without organised actions created mountains, rivers and the skies.

When we worry, the question to ask issn’t, “how to make it more perfect?”

Rather we could redefine “perfect” and ask if our version of perfect is worth the stress?

In 1858, the Great Stink happened in London. Everywhere you went, it stank.

The pits were filling with human faeces and we couldn’t clear them fast enough.

For years, it smelled. When you were eating a croissant, visiting the doctors, sleeping in your room.

Not that you did, but if you ever tried sleeping inside a yet-to-clean festival toilet, you’d know how is.

It is not until Joseph Bazalgette, commissioned by the city, came to fix the problem.

He designed 1,600km of brick sewer pipes in large oval shapes. Using gravity and downward slopes to ensure sewage flowed in the right direction (pun intended). For places it couldn’t, steam-powered pumps lifted the pipes. Beautiful ornate house were built to blend them into the neighbourhood.

They had to dig up the road, build the sewer and rebuild the road without machinery or computer modelling, in one of the world’s busiest cities. The digging, carrying and bricklaying was all done by hand and horse for six years.

150 years later, most of the pipes are still in use today.

Today, we have added a few more steps. Separating rainwater from sewage, treating it, and turning it into fertilisers and energy.

The night soil man who collected our poo has moved on. We are not in constant fear of cockroaches and snakes when we are in the toilet. And we can, by and large, take a breath of air without choking.

Can you imagine that?

As attention get fractured, book sales dipped and sharing insight has changed fundamentally.

We saw it before.

The record business was perfect until the internet and Spotify came along. The artists who saw it early gave their music away and pivot to live performances and merchandises.

Now, as the economic environment and climate changes, careers gets upended. It pays dividend to think hard about what to do next.

A career is simply a made up idea. Pastors, farmers and entrepreneurs don’t have careers. They have seasons, projects, ideas and jobs.

What to invest (or learn) that would reap rewards for the next ten years?

What are you good at?

What do you enjoy?

What does the world need?

Just like COVID can be an opportunity to kick start the life you wanted all along, or it can buried us in.

This is an opportunity to learn how you can adapt and cast in a vote into resilience.

The advice, be so good that they can’t ignore you, is missing a second part. Make sure what you choose to be good at is something scarce that you can exchange money for, in years to come.

You don’t need to throw everything away, but you need to pay attention and start placing bets.

You have agency.

“It’s chill” can mean I’m flexible, I can accommodate you. I can work with you.

It can also mean it’s a chill place. We like it that way and a lot of work has gone into keeping it that way.

It can also mean I don’t care, do what you want.

Or perhaps I’ve not thought through my preference, so I will leave it later and hope its the right kind of chill for both of us.

Being clear takes effort. A chill place takes effort. Knowing, and standing up for what you want, takes effort.

“It’s chill,” is cheap now and expensive later.

When a new technology comes along that could change everything, it’s easy to think that it will.

If we think about the iPhone, internet or cars. How much did your life change? Did you lose your job or find yourself in a new job? Were you worried?

With AI today, I’m not sure how much our grandma, the nurse, or a pastor’s lives would change.

The question we have to ask is… what do we do? How would this technology would change it?

Is this like the camera to painters, the engine to horses, or the aeroplane to ferries?

For the last few years, AI has been getting good at many specific tasks. Now, it can feel like there’s so much to catch up on because of the varied ways of using it.

In life, there are always 3 options. You can change it, ignore it or accept it. What is not a good option is wishing you could change it, and not changing it.

This phrase has been on repeat lately and brought me surprisingly delight each time.

I am more fearless, happier and weirdly, more effective.

I read an interview with Colu Henry where she was facing challenges writing her manuscript. Her therapist told her “to write from love, not for love” and just like that.

I’ve since used it to find a life mentor, request time from busy friends, confess my attraction, compliment strangers, give rejection and discern when I need a nap.

It gave me an orientation. A different way to bring the most goodness to a bad situation. It gave me courage to be vulnerable.

I thought about sharing the specifics of what I did different after the phrase but I shall resist. I believe that the magic is in you using it.

The phrase reminded me of why I started this blog, my wedding planning days and the best parts of who I am.

I hope this mantra can bring that out in you too.

“…from love, not for love.”

A bow to Colu’s therapist and Mymind for the interview.