short cuts cut you short

Howdy, friends.

Was on a little 5k jog around the park today and popped on this week’s episode of Coach Bennett’s Podcast. The episode: “Dumb Stuff People Say About Running.”

It’s about running, and it’s not about running, and so I wasn’t surprised to hear one of the greatest articulations against using AI for creative, critical, and academic work. And really, a helluva lot more, like the fast-tracking of literally every other experience. So, something stupid that people say—

Short cuts work. Anyone who is telling you, “this is a shortcut,” I would flag this…. I’m not saying that there aren’t ways to cheat the system—there are! There are short cuts out there. But here’s the thing…There are parts of the journey that you will skip, which means there will be earned wisdom you will not have. There will be strength, mental and physical, you will not have and there will be confidence that you do not have and I’ll tell you why you don’t have that confidence.

It’s because confidence is the acknowledgement and appreciation of your achievements and accomplishments. It is respecting what you’ve done and when you skipped these things, you didn’t do them. Which means you can neither appreciate nor acknowledge those achievements or accomplishments because you didn’t achieve them. You didn’t accomplish them. Which means you do not have the confidence that you would have had if you had taken the long road—which, by the way, is the only road that matters.

So, short cuts. Yes. They’ll get you where you want to go. But you won’t be who you want to be when you get there.

Damn.

That’s it. I’ll let you think on that. The whole episode is solid, especially the bit about numbers and metrics, and the bit about joy and laughter, and the bit—well, I’ll just let you listen to it.

Also, you should check out his dictionary runs. The one for confidence is a banger.

Stay sharp,

C. L.