Principles
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Tomorrow is Presidents’ Day. And today? Today is your day to decide what truly matters to you.
Now, before you tell me that’s wishful thinking, I’d like to ask you to pause for just a moment.
We are already six weeks into the new year, and before you know it, it will be summer. Then we’ll be inundated with midterm election ads. Then Thanksgiving. Then Christmas.
This year will fly by in a flash, and you may never get to living the life you had imagined for yourself. Yes, that one. The life you were gifted with at birth. The life you haven’t had time to focus on because life is noisy, fast, challenging (and lately, unsteady, unpredictable, and even downright scary).
So pull up a chair, as I say to my kids. Let’s get into you.
Are you living the life you imagined, or are you burdened by everything else on your plate? Are you hopeful about your present and your future? Or are you, like so many people I speak to, quietly terrified about right now and even more frightened about what lies ahead?
This week, my friend Andrew came to my office. He came to brainstorm about the future of this publication and other work I'm deeply involved in.
“Something is changing,” Andrew said as he sat down. “And it’s changing fast.”
Andrew is 38 years old. He’s wicked smart (as they say in Boston) and is deeply committed to creating a better world. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s also been genuinely optimistic about our country and our future. But when we sat down the other day, Andrew’s tone was different.
“We’re in an interesting situation,” he said.
I thought to myself, Interesting is an interesting word choice.
“We have to be thoughtful,” Andrew continued. “So much is possible. But possible doesn’t necessarily mean good.”
Tell me more, I asked.
“More feels up in the air than ever before,” he said. “Things you once counted on, you can’t count on anymore. Artificial intelligence is changing everything—and it’s changing things so fast that many people don’t yet realize how much of what was… is no longer.”
“There’s a real longing right now,” he added, “for wisdom. For sense-making. For leadership.”
Then Andrew asked if I had read a recent interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in which Altman described himself as not just sad, but profoundly sad. In the article, Altman said he was realizing that the tools he helped create had made him feel useless and obsolete.
Think about that for a moment. The person who helped create the very technology reshaping our world feels obsolete because of it. When I shared that with several people later, their response was striking.
“I have no pity for him,” they said. “What did he expect?”
That reaction—and the lack of empathy in it—stayed with me.
Those conversations also led to deeper questions: What actually makes us feel useful in unsteady times? How do we feel valuable when a machine can outperform us at nearly every turn? How many of us already feel obsolete, and why?
These are good questions that we must each answer for ourselves. But questions alone don’t anchor a life. Principles do. And I think part of the answer begins with how we are living right now.
What foundation have we built our lives upon? Are we working in places where we feel needed? Have we built lives that truly include others? Do we have a belief system to guide us? Principles that direct us forward? And if not, this may be as good a moment as any to stop and think about that.
If you had to write down three principles you want your life to stand on right now—not someday, but now—could you name them? If you’re not sure where to start, try asking yourself these three simple questions:
When have I felt most proud of how I showed up this year?
When have I felt most uncomfortable with how I showed up?
And when have I felt most connected to something larger than myself?
Your answers will quietly point you toward the principles you’re already living, or toward those you’re longing to live.
Andrew also reminded me of Walt Disney’s guiding principles that shaped not only his company, but an entire cultural legacy. They are worth sharing because Walt Disney didn’t just have a vision to create the happiest place on earth. He had principles that guided the path toward that vision:
No cynicism.
Fanatical attention to detail.
Continuous progress through imagination, creativity, and dreams.
Preserving a sense of magic in everything.
And finally, nurturing wholesome American values.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand: In an age when machines are faster than us, smarter than us, and often cheaper than us, principles become our anchor. At this publication, we try to live by the same idea. We are powered by people, purpose, passion, principles, and partnership. Partnership matters deeply to us because we believe we are part of something larger than ourselves: a growing movement to build a more caring, compassionate, and collaborative world. To be in partnership we need to be able to depend on each other, that’s why I’m so glad we talked to Nedra Glover Tawwab again for The Sunday Paper this week. Together we are in partnership to Move Humanity Forward.
One of our guiding principles is to resist joining the noise and not demean, dehumanize, or divide. Another is to inspire, inform, and ignite our readers to see themselves as having real agency in their own lives, and to understand that personal agency shapes the world we all share.
We don’t believe change only belongs to institutions or leaders. We believe it belongs to people. Having guiding principles in work and at home helps us create a life of our own making—not one dictated by algorithms or efficiency metrics.
Having people in our lives who see us, value us, and need us makes us feel anything but obsolete. Being of service to others makes us feel useful, not replaceable. And knowing what values truly matter to us helps guide our civic lives, our professional lives, and, inevitably, how we show up in our public and political lives as well. Because it’s all connected.
If you don’t believe individual action connects to political outcomes, look no further than what we’re seeing unfold in communities across the country—including Minneapolis—where citizens have organized, resisted, and insisted that their principles matter.
To that end, this week I spoke with Professor Scott Galloway about his new “resist and unsubscribe” initiative for an upcoming episode of Life Above the Noise, airing this Thursday. We also discussed what he believes men, in particular, are struggling with right now.
Here’s the truth: You don’t have to redesign your entire life today. But we do all have to begin paying attention to what it is asking of us now. This is not a time to be asleep, to tune out, or to be complacent. It doesn’t mean we all have to jump into the political fray, but it does mean we all need to be informed. It does mean we all have to think about our lives and our country’s life as connected, because they are.
The speed of the change happening right now—and the change that will continue to happen in the coming months and years—will be dizzying. So we all have to pause. We all have to reconfigure. We all have to give ourselves the gift of now, so that we don’t wake up someday in the future feeling useless and obsolete.
So today—not tomorrow, not someday—ask yourself:
What principles do I want to stand on?
Who do I want to serve?
What life am I actually creating?
Because in the age of AI, personal agency isn’t something that just happens. It’s something we have to consciously claim. And maybe this is also the moment when we begin to expect more from the people who lead our governments, our schools, our companies, our communities, and our spiritual institutions. No, not louder voices. Not sharper arguments. But clearer principles. Because what we are really longing for right now is not another system or another ideology.
We are longing for a shared human code that’s rooted in dignity, responsibility, compassion, and care. A code we can believe in. A code we can practice. A code we can pass on.
That, too, is how we move ourselves and humanity forward.
Prayer of the Week
Dear God,
Steady our hearts in this restless age and guide us to live lives of purpose, compassion, and faithful agency in the time we have been given.
Amen.
Also in this week’s issue:
• Nedra Glover Tawwab Says This Is How to Create Healthy Relationships
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