What I can change

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I think everyone has heard that before. I was vaguely familiar with it but it’s not a particularly core part of my life.

Or so I thought.

I’ve been reflecting a bit on larger-scale changes which are happening around me: the major geopolitical changes we’re seeing, the rise of AI, the latest Ruby drama, climate change, etc.

I realise now that my default response is to understand how to navigate this world as it is, not change it to how I believe it should be. Perhaps it’s the swimmer and the stoic in me: I’m swimming in the sea, adjusting my stroke, sighting for landmarks, and ploughing on because I can’t change the conditions. I can only change how I respond to them.

I can’t wish for the wind to stop blowing waves into my face when I breathe but I can turn my head to the other side. I can’t change the water temperature but I can have predicted these conditions and trained for it (or worn a wetsuit). I can’t make the fog lift but I can remember the course, sight more frequently, and follow other swimmers or the directions of kayakers. I can’t do anything when a storm cancels a swim but I can be ready if it doesn’t.

Others, I’ve noticed, are not like this. Perhaps stronger or braver, they rage against this tide. They scream at the injustice of it—as if life was supposed to be fair—and they rally others to the cause. They see a delta between how the world is and how they believe the world should be, and they believe they can change it. I guess? Or, at least, they seem to expend significant energy complaining about it.

I don’t.

That person is who they are. That company does what it does. That country is what it is. That government is exactly what they said they were. That situation happened. That technology does what it does. This industry is going that way. The climate is getting worse. Those incentives are aligned to inevitably produce this outcome. People are going to be who they are. I am who I am.

I can’t change much of that.

I’m so small in this world that all I can do is figure out what has happened or predict what’s going to happen, how that affects me (if at all), and how I react to it. I have control over myself, some influence over others around me, and a vanishingly small effect on the rest of the world.

This is mostly how I’m thinking about AI: It’s inevitable. There is so much money aligned behind AI that the incentives for powerful people, and frankly the entire US economy, mean that AI is going to be pushed and pushed and pushed. And even with the simplest of tasks and the most naive implementation, the hint at value is there. This is not crypto. This is not a solution searching for a problem that normal people have (who aren’t money launderers)¹. AI is going to be widely available, widely distributed, and widely integrated.

Once you accept that AI is going to be a thing, you can start figuring out if it’s going to affect you (undoubtedly, yes). Then you can start plotting how you’ll react to it.

The future is the sea, AI is the prevailing weather conditions, and your career is the course you need to plot. What are you going to do about it? How will you adapt your stroke? How will you change your mindset? What need equipment or skills do you need? Or are you withdrawing from the race?

Putting your head in the sand, ignoring AI, protesting against its use or the crimes of its evangelical creators, or hoping it’ll go away is a losing strategy. It’s exhausting, it’s depressing, and it simply delays your actual reaction to the situation. It’s not getting you anywhere.

Stop screaming into the storm and start learning how to swim in it.