The 90% Problem:

Why Most People Are in the Wrong Job—and What It’s Costing Us – not just as an increasingly distracted, divided, dystopian society, but as the individuals that comprise it:

by Duncan Bolam

There is an invisible epidemic hollowing out our culture - not announced in headlines, but inscribed in the weary gait of the weekday commute, the rising tide of antidepressants, and the mute despair of workers sleepwalking through roles they never chose and barely possess the insight of self-knowing to survive.

It is the crisis of vocational misalignment. A crisis of squandered energy, unrealised gifts, tarnished pride, wasted potential and a lost sense of place in a working-world that forever seems to feel like a borrowed jacket.

And though few dare say it aloud, I will: most people are in the wrong job.

The mass-scale at which we squander 'people power' - that pent-up positivity that resides within all of us, awaiting ignition - typifies the wasted energy that defines the entire sustainability discipline taken so seriously by any environmentally responsible organisation. So, why don't we treat wasted human potential as we do our carbon metrics? Why do we pour human potential like water in wastelands?

We Once Wore Our Work Like a Coat-of-Arms:

There was a time - before the mechanised sprawl of consumerism - when a person's work meant something. Their livelihood formed an integral strands in their identity. Not just to them, but the people in receipt of the benefits attached to 'good work'. Work wasn't seen as just a function. It was individuality. A pride-installing badge of office. A belonging. Attribution. Craft. Contribution. Legacy. Becoming.

Walk down any high street built before the mid-20th Century and the ghosts of a truly vocational society were still being celebrated. You’ll still find echoes of a time when work wasn’t just a means to earn a living - it was a birthright, a lineage, a guild, a mantra. From the golden globes of the pawnbroker to the mortar and pestle of the apothecary, every shop sign once symbolised a trade, and every trade was a narrative proudly handed-down through generations. Many of our surnames today - Smith, Baker, Fletcher, Cooper - are the residue of this vocational inheritance.

Symbols of Craft

Excerpt from “The History Of Signboards - From The Earliest Times To The Present Day, By Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten, chapter 10 - Dignities, Trades and Professions” (twelfth impression with one hundred illustrations by J. Larwood, London, published by Chatto & Windus, 1908):

“Tools and utensils, as emblems of trade, were certainly placed outside houses at an early period, to inform the illiterate public of the particular trade or occupation carried on within. Centuries ago the practice, as a general rule, fell into disuse, although a few trades still adhere to it with laudable perseverance: thus a ‘broom’ informs us where to find a sweep; a ‘gilt arm’ wielding a hammer tells us where the gold-beater lives; and a ‘last’ or ‘gilt shoe’ where to order a pair of boots. Those houses of refreshment and general resort, which sought the custom of particular trades and professions, also very frequently adopted the tools and emblems of those trades as their distinguishing signs.”

For further context, some of these trades symbols are representative of the occupation’s history. Take the Barber's Pole as an example, featuring the still ubiquitous red and white stripes. With the red representing blood and the white representing bandages; harking back to times when barbers would also perform haircuts... and surgical procedures!

Hence, our work and identity were once intertwined as the good we contributed to our communities. Whether through the livery companies of London, the heraldry of medieval guilds, or the spiritual gravity of being “called” to the ministry, livelihood was not simply a version of making a ‘living’, but a pivotal role in the weave of our human story and the tapestry of community. Occupational specialism could easily stand accused of giving shape to a town’s collective identity and economic prosperity; as it formed the rhythm of civic life, and passed down expertise through the generations.

Somewhere along the way, we broke that chain.

The Modern Malaise - Work Without Soul:

We’ve drifted apart work and us. Trades of my supply of expertise in exchange to your demand or need - previously based upon the transaction of the constitution of what once amounted to ‘good work’ - has been eroded away by the profit-motive, commercial opacity, flexibility and the dilution of specialism and accrued mastery. The whole barter-system was founded on this exchange of 'good'. Hence, economists refer to products as 'goods'.

We distilled-down what gave livelihoods their meaning in the first place: The autonomy. The creativity. The dignity. The Pride. The Status. The self-sacrifice. The extraction of meaning. The associations of effort invested in the attainment of high rank. The ensuing life-momentum. The higher purpose. The contribution of good. Whereas vocation once meant specificity of aim directed towards a recognisable, valued transaction; nowadays cost-efficiencies, profit-motives and process-flows have dismembered meaning installing work into meaning-less task-parcels that form vectors in an unfathomable, globalised matrix.

At the behest of employers, we replaced the craft of vocation with the currency of 'employability', 'adaptability' and shapeshifting 'generalism'. We stopped asking, “What were you born to do?” and started asking, "How many hats can you wear at one time?", “What work can you tolerate?” and “What toil can you tolerate for how small a wage?” We turned meaning into side-hustles and saw career guidance replaced by profitability (at all costs), efficiency, algorithms and platitudes. We shoved calling from the workplace into the home. And now, the consequences of worshipping at the altar of profit are laid bare.

What Does The Data Say:

According to Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace report, only 23% of employees globally are engaged at work. A staggering 77% are either "not engaged" (quiet quitting) or "actively disengaged" (loud quitting). The same report estimates a global loss of $8.9 trillion in productivity, equivalent to 9% of the world's GDP. These aren’t just cold numbers. They represent burned-out teachers, aimless mid-managers, stalling students, overqualified baristas, and silently suffering professionals, who once hoped their work might matter.

And yes, I’m aware that citing a figure like “90%” invites scrutiny - especially from those who live in the high towers of statistical rigour. My esteemed professor friend, for instance, dismisses 'my number' outright, arguing it lacks empirical ballast. But here’s my response: I have not plucked this number from thin-air. It’s the result of a 29-year longitudinal conversation with more than 3,500 individuals - clients I’ve connected with face-to-face, coached, counselled, and companioned through career transition, the bereavement process of redundancy, disillusionment, and resultant reinvention. Dispirited workers whose pain I've felt. Transformational epiphanies I have had the extraordinary privilege of witnessing the sparking of in front of my own eyes. Visceral intentionality breaking out. Purposes born.

These clients have come from every rung of the professional ladder and the broadest imaginable spectrum of industries – Board-level executives, PhDs, scientists, tradespeople, creatives, technologists, administrators, marketeers, public servants, and entrepreneurs. And their stories, while diverse, echo a haunting consistency: they so often feel miscast in their roles, misaligned with their values, or worn down by work that ignores the deeper calling of their truer, innate, authentic selves.

No, 'my number' is not a statistic grabbed from the ether based on hearsay - it is borne of actual lived evidence of fast approaching three decades of 'whites-of-the-eyes' interventions. A real-life-query asked of many hundreds of people who find themselves (and their careers) in the eye of major upheaval and cast adrift. Qualitative, experiential data gathered over 29-years at the coal-face of actual careers.

If academia discounts that, then it risks mistaking measurable for meaningful and desk-based for the stark reality. So, I stand by my 90% figure - not as the statistic of shock tactics, but as a vermillion signal flare to raise the alarm. A clarion call to take seriously the possibility that the way we work is no longer working for the way we need to exist as people woven into tapestries of real-life.

The Potential-Thieving Triangle:

Over time, I developed a model to explain what I was observing - I call it my 'Potential-Thieving Triangle'. It identifies three interconnected forces that rob people of vitality and vocational fulfilment:

• The Wrong Role: Being in a job that doesn't match one's temperament, strengths, or sense of purpose.

• Disengagement: The psychological withdrawal that follows, where motivation, curiosity, values and creativity are temporarily misaligned or permanently shut down.

• Suppressed Potential: The cumulative effect - a life unlived, prospects unrealised, a contribution unmade, a vocational spirit, our authenticity, half-asleep.

This triangulation of employment disaffection forming a self-reinforcing loop. When someone remains trapped within it for too long, their internal compass corrodes. They no longer remember what alignment feels like. The tragedy isn’t just lost productivity - it’s the lost possibility of human potential as the whole weave of civilisation. Each one a key strand in the wider tapestry of human story.

Duncan Bolam's Potential-thieving Triangle:

The Invisible Transaction of Work:

“If you want to totally crush a man’s soul, give him work devoid of meaning.”

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Seemingly, to me at least, humankind teeters toward environmental and ecological oblivion. Not only that, but I fear we are accelerating towards it. My heartfelt belief is that, as our species proliferates and grows from a population of three billion fifty years ago to - potentially the tipping-point of collapse – at a projected ten billion by 2050, it will not necessarily be the climate or population crises that threaten our species.

My forecast is, the mass-scale contagion of lost meaning will be the crisis that endangers us most. Because humans without access to meaning-installing and prideful work struggle to underwrite their existence with the vitalising self-expression of their “who, what, why, where, when and how?” (A mantra I apply frequently in my coaching practice). And minus such answers our life-propulsion systems flounder in the direction of full atrophy.

In other words, if we are not ascending, we are descending. If we are not evolving, we risk devolving. Simple. In struggling to aggregate all-important and vitalising self-respect, people risk feeling worthless and becalmed. And this does not simply refer to the worth attached to money. The diagram above, denotes the increasing loss of purpose in the population and how ‘The Purposeful’ hold-up the rest of society in some Herculean-feat of tangible contribution.

[The exceptions to this tenet are the extreme hedonists who comprise ‘the ruling classes’ or the most materialistic echelons of society where the top 2 to 5% own between 75 and 98% of land and resource. Where pleasure principles correlate with status symbols, materialism and have little to do with the essence of social cohesion and the innate meaning derived from contributing palpable good to the security, safeguarding, wellbeing and prosperity of the wider community. Hence, 'the gated community' higher up the hill, far removed from the din of realities facing real lives. Apparently, human compassion and ostentation are incompatible.]

As we explore in my book (due for release Summer 2025), as a species we might die out through the lack of a sufficiently compelling need to be. Hence, the primary focus of ‘Good Being: The Meaning of Life-Engine’ is about the symbiotic generation of love, work and beauty in union. With “The Work Aesthetic” – not merely being about employability - but work that contributes to the alignment of values for stakeholders the world-over. With the definition of ‘work’ being: “The application of mental or physical effort towards - or the contribution of - a meaningful, mutually beneficial, purpose or goal.” Obviously, there are graduations of what constitutes meaningful. But "mutually beneficial" is a key. Because selfish work does not equate to the tapestry of worth-our-while contribution.

In terms of pure sustainability, it is critical to understand that humanity evolves through the distillation process of overcoming adversity in constant ascent towards better versions of ourselves. Not just as a species, but as the individual micro-cogs each human life forms in this vast, exquisite mechanism of defying the odds that are stacked against us as a whole species. Without which, there would be no progress, no traction, no pride, no sense of achievement. No incentive. No worthwhile legacy. No traction No Progress.

No love.

Consequently, Good Beings recognise it is a priority to achieve mastery in service to Self as they radiate love to others through their authenticating vocation. In completing this feedback loop, they also strive to maximise potential in others through the sparking of awe. Because this is what love is. The act of cultivating, encouraging and nurturing potential into kinesis is the very essence of what it is to love others; which is why fixation on sating selfish needs is proportionate to the self-actualization ratio for humanity over time. Life minus intentionality, aspiration and an innate quest to drive oneself forward and contribute good typifies loss of hope, momentum and 'ascent'.

Mechanisation is killing us with kindness – the need not to act – and a blithe effortlessness is plaguing the developed world. (The undeveloped world does not (yet) face this mirage. Hunter-gatherers have not lost sight of their truth because contemporary hunter-gatherer societies uphold valuable insights into our human past, cultural reverence, collective wellbeing, community coherence and alternative modes of subsistence. Because they have a deep appreciation of their local environment and work hard to maintain their heritage revolving around Nature’s rhythms, seasonal-patterns, a deepening sense of connection, and an innate ability to forage successfully through vested cooperation).

The Cult of the Generalist - Diluting the Human Vocation:

Another modern myth, often celebrated by employers and the profit-hungry, is the veneration of 'the generalist'. They’re praised for their versatility, adaptability, and ability to ‘plug into any role’ and 'hit-the-ground-running' anywhere, anytime. In reality, this philosophy is less about human flourishing and more about economic convenience, margin gains and the mitigation of risk.

It's a similar myth that one should tailor one's CV/résumé to fit all manner of jobs. Why do serious careers advisers encourage such falsification of aptitude and fit? Isn't the very real risk that we tee up candidates to failure if we manipulate their suitability to perform a particular job specification? Surely, the 'path of least resistance' to successful outcomes is to perform the tough-love task of distilling their actual 'Career Dovetail' and helping them formulate a sustainable career strategy based upon who they actually are?

The truth is, when everyone is trained to do everything, no one becomes a master of anything, and workers are not encouraged to invest in the responsibility that comes with cultivating time-proven mastery. We forget there is radiance in such growth and transcendence. Where, specificity of focus is essential - not just in the accumulation of expertise - but for fulfilment. Generalism might serve an employer’s balance-sheet, but it often sabotages a worker’s long-term forging of vocation, resultant conviction, confidence and resilience.

Yes, of course, any commercially savvy, pragmatically minded person appreciates that we all need to generalise during our education and training, during our actual exploration of aptitudes and capabilities, expansion of our horizons, aligning of principles and confirmation of curiosities. But the tangible return on the investment of dedication, concentrating our attention, devoting our time and the necessary self-sacrifice gets paid back - once we specialise and the positive feedback loop of life and work actively pays back.

The most pragmatic argument against generalism is that specialists strive to contribute the lasting solution, not flourish from inadvertent acts of perpetuating the problem.

The False Economy - Why business minus soul does not = commercial sense:

Our high streets offer a stark metaphor. I’m old enough to remember them as the once proud domain of specialist retailers - fishmongers, vintners, grocers, tailors, cobblers, and bakers – subsequently stripped bare by the predatory Americanisation of commerce. Supermarkets rolled these time-proven, traditional crafts into a homogenous aisle. With them went generations of hand-me-down vocational expertise and nuanced craft. What replaced them? Convenience, yes - but also 'mass-mediocrity'.

No, those traditional craft workers and artisans who once populated our high streets, contributed far more than just goods - they built thriving, resilient communities. Unlike today’s superstores and out-of-town retail parks, which funnel profits to distant corporations and rely on disposable consumption summed up by the antichrist of sustainability, "fast fashion" - skilled tradespeople generated lasting LOCAL value. They sourced materials nearby, trained apprentices, and kept wealth circulating within their community, creating a multiplier-effect that chain-stores simply cannot match. Their work was durable, repairable, and tailored to local needs, fostering sustainability long before it became a buzzword.

Beyond economics, artisans (specialists) fortified social and cultural fabric. High streets were lively hubs of concentrated craftsmanship; where skills were handed down and unique local identity flourished. Modern retail, with its uniform chains and automated service, can’t replicate that human connection, belonging or sense of place. As I will repeat again and again, the decline of the 'craft economy' hasn’t just changed how we work and procure goods - it’s eroded community resilience, authenticity, and the very soul of our towns (and the citizens who populate them). If we want vibrant high streets again, we must recognise that real value isn’t just in convenience, but in craftsmanship, community, and continuity. Alongside celebrating the natural diversity that coexists in moderne communities.

Hence, pursuit of the profit-motive alone,

underpins what is - in effect - our false economy.

Consequently, the wider workplace has seen a comparable flat-lining. Depth replaced by breadth. Intuition replaced by templates. Passion replaced by performance reviews. Proficiency for efficiency. We’ve sacrificed depth for flexibility - and the cost is not yet fully counted. But the harsh, cold, stark reality is that we have become increasingly obsessed with technology to the detriment of humanity's wellbeing. Yes, capitalism has lifted billions from poverty. But at what cost to our actual wellbeing and the quality of the essence of our lives?

Calling Is Not a Luxury - It’s a Human Necessity:

Some argue, as my professor friend does, that the notion of a ‘calling’ is an indulgence society can ill-afford to pursue. That it sets people up for disappointment. But I believe the opposite to be true. The deeper wound isn’t unmet ambition - it’s the ache of never even being asked who we were meant to be. The widespread dispensing of aptitude + passion + principle = intentionality of purpose and the cumulative effects of the net benefit.

As my conveyed livelihood and whole reputation is constructed upon my ability to unleash it, the notion of calling (in a non-Lutheran sense) is no farfetched fantasy. Calling is a life-compass. With resulting bearing-points not always directing us towards a conventional job or linear path. But it does orient us toward a resilience inducing vitality. My 'stock-in-trade' - my coaching craft - reminds us that work isn’t just about making a living - it’s about manufacturing meaning in the contribution of ‘good’.

And meaning really, really matters.

So What Do We Do?

We need a new philosophy of work. One that reclaims the dignifying traits of lost vocation, the facilitation of self-inventory, the alignment of principles, the sating of curiosity, the necessity of depth, the contribution of good, the seizing of responsibility, the generation of awe and the primacy of 'fit'. Please remember this truism: as with love, authentic vocation lies with the beholder of it. And this is a diverse world with infinite points-of-view. This doesn’t mean we all quit our jobs tomorrow to become poets, painters and glassblowers. Although, the pursuit of such 'dovetails' does mean we start building a labour market that enables people to thrive, not just survive.

Life was never intended to be a survival course!

In the interests of citizens and the communities they aspire to contribute to, belong to and leave their legacies to, the Good Being philosophy asserts that employment policy must shift from just "job-creation" - designed purely in the interests of corporates - to "work alignment". Our who education system must shift from imposing a one-size-fits-all curriculum to differentiated framework focused on cultivating calling...

And organisations must stop treating engagement as a perk and start seeing it as a strategic imperative.

The 90% problem is real.

But this Good Being 'soulution' - to borrow William Bloom's wonder-filled word - is more real than policy-making. It begins with the courage to question where we are - and the resolve to help people find where they truly seek to belong. As such my 90% argument is a helpful benchmark from which to construct these necessary differentiated frameworks.

Why So Many Stay Stuck - The Unseen Resistance to Self-Recognition:

The tragedy at the heart of The 90% Problem is not laziness, incompetence, or a lack of ambition. It’s the quiet, crushing disconnection from selfhood.

Most people don’t stay stuck because they don’t want change - they stay stuck because they’ve been subtly conditioned to fear the raw intimacy of self-knowledge. Somewhere along the way, their psyche picked-up the message that we're not supposed to love ourselves. That pride in Self is egoic. That self-assuredness equates to big-headedness.

When I ask clients to recount the ten most meaning-full stories of their lives - the moments of real agency, tangible ingenuity, inexplicable resolve, unexpected triumph, pride-installing results or quiet moral courage - what often follows is not confidence, but collapse. A fog descends. Doubt kicks in. “I’m not sure I’ve done anything that significant. Ever.” they say. And that’s when I know: they’ve become strangers to their own identities and blind to their defining characteristics and imprisoned in their own self-doubt.

This is not their fault. It’s the inheritance of a culture that teaches performance over presence, perfection over process and subservience over self-determination.

Many have never been accurately mirrored, let alone mentored. Their best qualities went unnoticed, or worse still, were punished in the interests of conformity. Others wrapped their success around survival mechanisms, and now associate pride with pain. For them, recalling moments of strength risks unearthing the buried wounds of capitulation and the amputation of anything resembling distinction and setting their own achievements apart.

But perhaps the most common reason they stay stuck is this: no one ever taught them how to behold themselves. Instead, their self-audit of success stories was openly discouraged on the basis that feeling good about our achievements is conceited, big-headed and boastful. They learned how to do, how to please, how to compromise, how to endure, how to survive. But not how to bear witness, to evaluate, to celebrate, or respect who they truly are. And so they remain orbiting normalcy in lives that do not fit, jobs that do not align, identities that do not nourish. They downplay their value. They shrink their contribution. They bury their individuality. Compromise in trading their birthright for a paycheque. They self-sabotage.

That’s the deeper, more inconvenient truth of ‘The 90%’ - not that people are failing, but that they remain unseen, especially by themselves. Such betrayal of authenticity is a custom of those who would perpetrate mass-harm. Because, sadly, we have a habit of passing these traits down generation-to-generation.

To reawaken, stir and evoke one’s true Self is not a motivational gimmick - it’s an act of reclamation. Through the Good Being Platform, we’re not offering superficial fixes and façades. We’re handing people a compass to navigate their way back to their true essence. An alternate path to remembering what the world tried to make us forget: that we are here to become, to belong, to bear fruit, to know joy and to bring forth the one gift no-one else can.

Their full, true, unique, utterly, unequivocally, celebration-worthy, unrepeatable Self.

✴︎ An Invitation: Gathering the Evidence of Who You Truly Are:

A Gentle Practice for the Quietly Ready

If you’ve made it this far - if something in these words has unsettled or comforted you, even slightly - then perhaps a quiet readiness is beginning to unfold. Not for a giant leap across the gorge of self-doubt. Not for radical reinvention. Just a return. A coming home of your authentic Self.

This isn’t really an exercise. It’s a way of remembering yourself. Not the version the world wanted or expected you to be, but the one you’ve quietly proven yourself to be within - again and again, in moments of resolve, grace, or unexpected courage. Your truest Self.

And if no one ever showed you how to see that version of your Self clearly…how would you even know he or she or they were ever there?

Let’s begin gently.

Part One: Naming What Might Be in the Way:

Before you try to look inward, pause a moment. It’s okay if there’s resistance. You’re not alone in that.

Here are some of the quiet truths that may have made it hard for you to see yourself:

• You were taught not to shine too brightly

• No one ever invited you to name what matters most to you

• Some of your greatest strengths are tangled up with past pain

• You’ve spent years living in someone else’s story

• That critical voice in your head still gets the final word.

Just notice what lands.

And take a breath.

You’re not broken.

You’ve just been bravely surviving.

This is the first small act of your return.

The cultivation of the truer Self.

Part Two: Beginning Where It’s Warm:

Don’t dig. Don’t push. Let something rise. Learn to listen to your Self. Breathe. Tune-in.

Try to recall just one moment in your life where you felt happier, truer, proud, calm, alive - when time stood still and you knew you were in a moment ingrained with meaning - or like something simply clicked.

Allow pride to permeate.

What actions did you perform that made you feel 'good'?

What were the results that embodied your fulfilment?

What important value within you felt gladdened?

It doesn’t have to be big.

It just has to be yours.

Ask yourself:

• What happened?

• What did you do that surprised you?

• What did this show you about who you really are underneath it all?

• Why does it still mean something?

• Which of your curiosities were piqued?

• One assumes your primary values were aligned – which ones?

• Why was your achievement important to you?

• How did success make you feel?

• What would you do now to repeat this sensation?

Let your answers rise from deep within your psyche and take shape in your own time. You’re not writing a résumé - you’re simply lighting a small lantern that begins to enlighten the true you. You are warming your own heart. Building surety.

When you’re ready, let another memory come. And another. Over time, these ten twinkling lanterns will start to intensify your inner light in showing you a truer picture of who you are truly when you’re not trying to be someone for someone else's benefit.

Part Three: Seeing Yourself with Gentler Eyes:

Once you have formed the outlines of your stories, try looking at them through two softer lenses:

• The child-you: What would the ten-year-old version of you smile at, be excited by, feel proud of, or be comforted by in these stories?

• Your truest confidante’s eyes: If someone you loved had lived this life, what would you admire in them?

Sometimes we need a little distance to see clearly.

Part Four: If Emotion Comes, Let It In to Let it Out:

Your realizations will rise. You may feel emotional. Or quiet. Or not much at all. Perhaps such authentication leaves you numb.

But if something were to rise from deep inside, a tear, a lump in the throat, a moment of silence - please let that part of you be. That’s something true trying to find its way up and out and into existence.

There is no need to fix, analyse, or hurry it along. Just let the waves arise, and float in them until you align.

Part Five: Listening for the Patterns to Reveal Answers:

Once you’ve gathered a few stories, gently look back over them.

Ask:

• What do I keep showing up for, again and again?

• What do these patterns reveal about the core strands of my values, curiosities, the application of my instincts, and hidden strengths that are made relevant?

• What thread of meaning might be quietly weaving through my life?

• Who am I, when I’m not performing for the world?

• What do I like to do?

• What results install pride?

There’s no need to draw grand conclusions. Just notice, feel, honour, chime. This is not a test. It’s a remembering. A getting back in touch with our true selves.

What you’ll begin to see/ feel/ touch isn’t a false, given, compromised persona. It’s your Good Being. Not a version of yourself you have to become - but one that’s been patiently waiting in your gut, mind, body, spirit and soul for you to return to all along. The legitimate, authentic, complete version of your Self you were always intended to become. If only first, we could give ourselves the necessary permission and allowed our Self the awe-inspiring sensation of seeing ourselves fly like an eagle upon the highest thermals of possibility (that we ourselves generate). To become the version of ourself most deserving of self-actualization. The person most likely to depart this mortal-coil replete.

The Final Mirror:

Because when all is said and done, that far-flung, future moment, hopefully far beyond the event-horizon of our ‘present’ lives, is THE moment that counts.

That absolute, unscheduled and inescapable moment, when the clamour of daily life fades and the stillness of truth arrives. It is the moment - perhaps the only moment that truly matters - when we are alone with ourselves, and no mask, no accolade, no distraction can shield us from the question that awaits in the meekest of silence:

Did I live well?

Did I spend this one wild, exquisite, precious, unrepeatable life wisely, or did I let it pass me by, one compromise at a time?

It is a moment of stark realization, reckoning and revelation. Not merely a tally of deeds done, but a deep soul-inventory: Did I love deeply? Create boldly? Stand for what was right when it was easier not to? Did I honour that unique constellation of gifts life stitched into my being - that took so much discovery, or did I bury them under fear, convenience, or conformity? Was I aligned - gut, heart, mind, spirit and soul - with the greater good I was capable of serving?

Of course, inevitably, there is fear in this moment. Often borne of comparison to the standards of others. Yes, because it has to be honest. But there can also be absolution. Not perfection, but inner peace. If we can say we lived with courage, if we tried - really tried - to act with benevolence rather than bitterness, to grow rather than grasp, to build rather than break - then we have honoured the sacred opportunity of being fully human.

We have not just embraced this opportunity, we have celebrated it!

It is not about having avoided failure, for failure visits us all. Part of the growth process is acknowledging that mistake-making is the secret engine of growth, turning every misstep into a powerful springboard for learning, resilience, and ultimate success. No, it is about whether we kept walking towards the better version of ourselves, even when it hurts. Whether we became, incrementally, someone the world was glad to have visit. Someone who left behind more light than shadow. That moment - terrifying and transcendent - is the truest mirror we will ever face. May we live today so that when it comes, we do not flinch.

That we feel good about ourselves.

Epilogue: Hypothetically speaking: if the devil wanted to destroy the minds of the next generation without them even knowing it, how would he do it?

It's a powerful question that needs asking sometimes as a safeguarding act of ourselves and our loved-ones. Such a foreboding question echoes the kind of moral thought experiment that writers like C.S. Lewis explored in 'The Screwtape Letters'. Should we choose to take the question seriously - as a way of understanding and 'legislating' against subtle societal decay - here’s how “the devil” might quietly undermine the next generation:

1. Normalize Distraction as a Lifestyle: Feed them an endless stream of dopamine through notifications, short-form videos, aimless chatter and noise. Make silence feel awkward. Make stillness feel like failure. Replace contemplation with scrolling.

2. Erode Meaning & Purpose: Convince them that life has no deeper significance beyond consumption, trends, and self-indulgence. Remove the notion of vocation - of being called to do something meaningful. Blur the line between freedom and aimlessness.

3. Disintegrate Identity: Detach them from traditions, family stories, and coherent 'selfhood'. Keep them from asking “Who am I?” by giving them avatars, filters, and curated profiles to delude instead. Denigrate the responsibility to become adult.

4. Replace Dialogue with Division: Encourage public shaming and digital dogpiling. Replace healthy disagreement with identity warfare. Make curiosity dangerous and questioning taboo.

5. Make Love Conditional: Teach them that love must be earned - through looks, success, or popularity - not something given freely or cultivated patiently.

6. Reframe Truth as Opinion: Flood them with misinformation and competing narratives. Erode their trust in instincts, facts, elders, and their own intuition. Make it so they can’t tell when they’re being manipulated. Dumb them down. Distract them.

7. Exploit Wounds, Insecurities & Trauma: Commercialise low self-esteem. Package it in apps, smart devices, consoles, products, lifestyles, and algorithms. Ensure they compare, not connect. Keep them chasing “better” instead of becoming whole.

8. Collapse the Sacred: Strip language, ritual and the self-actualizing craft of transcendence. Let everything become a meme, a parody, or a transaction. Make reverence seem ridiculous. Leave no room for awe. Isolate them from themselves.

9. Cull Compassion & Mock Conscience: Teach them to see their Inner Voice as irrational, weak or unreliable. Elevate cynicism as intelligence. Downplay kindness as naivety.

10. Turn Education into Indoctrination or Commodity: Make learning a means to a wage only - not wisdom. Hide the liberal arts. Devalue craft. Train them to serve systems, not question or recreate them.

    
    

In short, if one wanted to destroy minds invisibly, the trick would be to replace depth with noise, connection with measurement, and being with performing until the soul becomes too faint to hear and faith in ourselves drowns.

Until such time as we take up the gauntlet laid down by Life to attain full-humanness, we are yet to progress into the realm of true adulthood in the life-defining act of taking charge of our own Destiny.