Most People Aren’t Malicious. They’re Maxed Out.

It’s not even malicious most of the time.

That took me a while to accept.

Most people aren’t ignoring the work.
They aren’t dismissing depth.
They aren’t consciously avoiding growth.

They’re maxed out.

Maxed out by their own noise.

Their thoughts.
Their identity maintenance.
Their curated values built around what they think they want.
What they think they need.
What they’ve convinced themselves matters.

We live in a time where people are obsessively wrapped up in themselves.

Optimizing. Branding. Healing. Processing.
Rearranging internal furniture like that’s the work.

But when life actually crashes down
When someone gets sick
When addiction bites
When a marriage fractures
When death enters the room

All that curated “important” stuff evaporates.

No one says
I wish I defended my identity harder.
I wish I argued more online.
I wish I protected my image better.

It reduces fast.

To people.

Family.
The ones who show up.
The ones who answer the phone.
The ones who sit in silence when there are no words.

That’s the virtue.

Everything else is theatre.

The Culture of Saying the Right Thing

We’ve built a society that knows exactly what to say.

Let’s connect.
Send it over.
I’d love to see it.
We should talk.

Polite enthusiasm is everywhere.

Follow-through is rare.

You can pour months into something. Years.
Bleed into the work.
Refine. Adapt. Think at levels that exhaust you.
Levels that challenge your own consciousness.

And the people who told you how powerful it was?

They nod.
They compliment.
They say it’s strong.

But when it’s time to engage, to wrestle with it, to sharpen it, to risk their own perspective, they default to distance.

It’s probably great.
I’m sure you covered everything.
You’re thorough like that.

It sounds supportive.

It’s insulation.

Because it was never about grammar.

It was about engagement.

It was about capacity.

And here’s the truth.

Most people don’t have it.

Capacity Is the Real Currency

Growth requires humility.

It requires the ability to say
Maybe I don’t have this figured out.

That’s rare.

I’ve sat in coaching clinics where five coaches show up and they’re already good. We look around and quietly think the same thing.

The ones who need this won’t come.

Not because they’re bad.

Because they’re defensive.
Because they’re overloaded.
Because protecting their identity feels safer than challenging it.

The medicine feels like an attack.

So they avoid it.

And here’s the irony.

The ones who could see themselves in this
Probably won’t read this.

Not because they disagree.

Because they can’t.

If you’re drowning in mental static, emotional backlog, digital distraction, quiet insecurity, and the low-grade anxiety of keeping your life stitched together, opening something that might expose a crack feels threatening.

So you scroll.
You postpone.
You negotiate.

We’re almost into March. How many people are still executing the goal they set in January?

A lot of them “adjusted the scope.”

That’s a polite way of saying it didn’t get done.

We negotiate with ourselves. I’ve done it. It’s not weakness. It’s avoidance dressed up as flexibility.

It’s not stupidity.

It’s self-protection.

Growth requires surplus bandwidth.

Most people are operating in deficit.

Why I’m Writing This

I’m not writing this to point fingers.

I’m writing it because I’ve lived on both sides.

There was a version of me that looked selfish from the outside. Obsessive. Consumed. Hard to understand.

Fair.

It affected people.

But the obsession was never about applause.

It was about capacity.

Lately I’ve been rereading Greek philosophy through a clearer lens. Not as decoration. As instruction.

Those thinkers were ruthless about responsibility.

The story of Sisyphus gets misread.

People see punishment.

A man condemned to push a rock uphill forever.

What they miss is presence.

The rock isn’t the curse.

The avoidance of the rock is.

You don’t escape the push.
You don’t outgrow effort.
You don’t arrive at a version of life where the hill disappears.

You get to choose how you carry it.

With resentment.
Or with awareness.

The work is the point.
The repetition is refinement.

Every push builds strength.
Every reset builds humility.
Every climb builds capacity.

That’s what this is.

And here’s where most people lose it.

The majority of the population is preparing for later.

Retirement.
The trip in four months.
The upgrade.
The moment when life will finally feel better.

We grind ourselves into the ground for a future we’re assuming we’ll reach.

That’s a bold bet in the current climate of the world.

We sacrifice presence for projection.

But it can be great now.

Not perfect.

Present.

I’m not chasing retirement.

I’m not chasing someday calm.

I take care of my business.
My family.
My responsibilities.

But I’m chasing presence.

When I train, I’m there.
When I write, I’m there.
When I’m with my kids, I’m there.

And it’s actually enjoyable.

Not because the rock got lighter.

Because I’m in the push.

This book.
My book.
My process.
My way of thinking.

It’s me choosing to push consciously.

To reduce noise instead of becoming it.

To increase capacity instead of increasing opinion.

Not to be admired.

To be steady.

To be useful when it matters.

Baseball and Calibrated Thought

I see this clearly in high school baseball.

Two extremes.

Overthinking.
Or no thinking.

Overthinking looks like paralysis.
Every swing dissected.
Every at-bat tied to identity.

No thinking looks like drifting.
No plan.
No adjustment.
Just emotion.

Both are problems.

Because everything requires a specific amount of thinking.

You cannot not think.

You also cannot drown in thought.

Hitting requires calibrated awareness.
Pitching requires presence.
Competing requires controlled attention.

The aim is calibration.

And this isn’t just baseball.

It’s society.

We have more information than ever.

Less personal reflection than ever.

Not intelligence.

Personal thought.

Independent value formation.

A lot of young athletes are skilled.

But they don’t know who they are.

Because they’ve never been alone long enough to find out.

Comparison is constant.
Expectation is constant.
Performance is constant.

Fear of not measuring up is louder than curiosity about who they could become.

So they overthink.

Or they shut down.

And you have to ask:

Will they ever meet who they could have been?

Or will comparison crush that version early?

We Are Wired to Be Seen

We are wired to be seen.

To be noticed.
To be acknowledged.

That’s human.

We crave validation for big things.

But we crave acknowledgment even more for basic things.

Move your body.
Eat well.
Think.
Drink water.
Be organized.

Basic discipline.

No applause.

So people drift toward visible drama.

Visible identity.
Visible outrage.

Because at least someone reacts.

But awareness is quiet.

Last week I saw it clearly.

I’m in Walmart.

A woman nearly knocks my cart over sprinting toward the escalator.

I say calmly, Whoa, are you okay?

She yells, I can’t find my kid.

Everything changes.

He’s two.

Now we’re running through a packed Walmart scanning shelves and corners.

And what struck me was this.

No one noticed.

Phones out.
Carts rolling.
Business as usual.

It wasn’t cruelty.

It was capacity.

People locked in their own noise.

I found him in sporting goods trying to pull a basketball hoop off a shelf.

All ended fine.

But the awareness gap stayed with me.

If we can’t notice that, what else are we missing?

Our kids drifting.
Our spouse burning out.
Our own spirit thinning.

We are wired to be seen.

We are not automatically wired to see.

That takes intention.

The Close

For the ones I see
The ones who don’t quite hear me yet

I don’t hope you agree.

I hope you find your breath.

I hope you find your peace.

I hope you look inward long enough to meet who you could become without the crush of comparison.

The present is unmatched.

Quiet.
Strong.
Steady.

It requires thought.

Not endless thought.

Calibrated thought.

Push your rock.

But look up while you’re pushing it.

Because the version of you that emerges from that work

Is the one your family deserves.

The one your teammates need.

The one the world quietly hopes shows up when something goes wrong.

The question isn’t whether you agree.

The question is whether you had the capacity to finish.