The Old Rules Don’t Apply
Now you can ask yourself, how true are you to yourself?
For decades we’ve been told the same story:
Go to college. Stick with the job. Climb the ladder. Seek stability. Find safety.
But if you haven’t noticed by now, those rules don’t hold anymore.
(Not just because of AI, the chaotic job market, and global unrest 😖)
The rules have been cracked, crumbled, dissolved into the noise of a world that is no longer playing by the same script.
And yet—so many of us are still looking outward for that external validation, that one promise of security that can’t actually be delivered.
The real question now isn’t: What degree do you have? What title do you hold? What ladder are you climbing?
The real question is: How true are you to yourself?
Safety Isn’t Out There
The illusion of safety through institutions has been breaking down for a while—AI reshaping entire industries overnight, money itself shifting in meaning, companies dissolving faster than they grow.
No 401k, no degree, no brand-name employer can guarantee you anything.
And the more we cling to those marketed promises, the more disappointed we become.
Safety, security, stability—they were always inside jobs.
They live in how honest we are with ourselves.
In how much we’re willing to face the uncomfortable, the uncertain, the downright terrifying work of self-inquiry.
Beyond Red vs Blue ❣️
This isn’t about being progressive or conservative, pro-Trump or anti-Trump. That binary lens is too flat, too shallow for the complexity of the world we’re in.
The real divide is this:
Who is willing to get vulnerable?
Who is willing to do the deep, dark, messy, inconvenient work of actually figuring out who they are—mentally, emotionally, spiritually?
Because that’s what this moment (and all the little in-between moments and the after-math moments) demands.
The New Shift
The external chaos isn’t going anywhere.
Systems will rise, fall, and be critiqued into oblivion. Religious dogmas, health practices, social movements—all of them are useful until they’re not.
Helpful until they’re harmful.
Clarifying until they cloud our judgment. 🫣
So where do we go from here?
What can guide or direct us?
We turn inward.
We ask better questions of ourselves.
We let the clarity emerge from within instead of waiting for an institution to hand us the answer.
And here’s the thing: it probably won’t be a neat, tidy answer.
Sometimes the courage is simply in asking the question at all.
Sometimes it’s in taking the first step without knowing what step two or three will be.
Redefining What Matters
If money stopped mattering tomorrow, what would be left?
If the jobs disappeared overnight, who would you be?
If all the ladders got knocked over, what would you climb instead?
These are the kinds of questions worth sitting with now.
Because the old game is ending. The new one doesn’t reward how well you memorize the rules.
It rewards how honestly you’re willing to live by your own.
That’s the new definition of safety. That’s the new stability. That’s the new power.
✨ I’d love to hear from you (comment or email me):
How are you defining safety for yourself? What does safety feel like/look like?