We have all had ‘for fucks sake’ moments. Have you tried to use a chatbot on your bank’s website recently? I’m currently engaged in an ongoing battle to update the connection between my QuickBooks accounting software and my bank due to changes in how you’re allowed to connect them. So far, several phone calls to the bank. Multiple chatbot ‘chats’, which are less ‘chats’ than completely pointless conversations. It’s doing my head in.

There’s a special type of exhaustion that isn’t triggered by some great drama or a singular crisis; rather, it seeps into your soul through a sequence of minor failures. The car won’t start. Then the cat vomits. Then a staff member calls in sick. Then you leave your phone at home. The ‘for fucks sakes’ start to well up. We hit a tipping point where all we want to do is scream into the void.

And let’s not get started on connecting a printer to the wifi.

I tell myself I need to be more resilient; modern life is great at throwing spanners in the works. It’s no wonder some people bail out of city life and move to the country to grow vegetables. It’s not one thing; it’s the accumulation that grows the heavy psychological load.

Rob Cross and Karen Dillon, co-authors of The Microstress Effect, argue that these brief, often unnoticed moments drain our capacity more than major life events. What makes them so insidious is precisely that they fly under the radar. As Cross explains:

“The body doesn’t distinguish between forms of stress. It’s just that the brain tends to recognize the big stress, and we invoke fight or flight, whereas these smaller moments we just persist through, yet our body’s still absorbing it.”

We are being worn down by forces we are not even registering as threats.

Part of the problem is what Craig Lambert, drawing on Ivan Illich, calls “shadow work.” As he writes in Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day:

“most of us do not recognize [it] or realize how much of it we are doing, even as we pump our own gas, scan and bag our own groceries, execute our own stock trades, and assemble our Ikea furniture.”

Tasks once handled by specialists have been quietly externalised onto us, framed as efficiency. The emotional cost never appears on a balance sheet. When the systems fail, the labour of fixing them falls entirely on the individual.

What strikes me is how little of this we share. For those of us working remotely - and that’s an ever-increasing proportion - there is no office floor to absorb the blow. Nobody is watching you swear at the same chatbot loop for the third time. Nobody to laugh with over the printer that won’t connect. The frustration lands in a vacuum, which means it also lands entirely on you. The system externalises the labour, and solitude externalises the shame.

If you feel like you are under siege by inanimate objects and digital loops, you are not failing at life. You are navigating an environment designed for corporate efficiency rather than human well-being.

The antidote isn’t a better productivity app. It’s recognising that these frictions are not a measure of your competence, and that bearing them alone makes them heavier than they actually are.

Sometimes the most radical thing a good human can do is name the small things out loud - to another person, if you have one nearby, or at least to yourself. Not to fix them. Just to stop carrying them in silence.

The word “loneliness” has been around since the 1500s, but for most of that time it meant something closer to remoteness: a physical condition, not an emotional one. It wasn’t until around 1800 that it began to carry the weight we now recognise: the ache of disconnection, the sense of being without. That shift arrived trailing the industrial revolution like smog. Before it, we had “oneliness” - simply the state of being alone, with no judgment attached.

The distinction is subtle but vital. Oneliness originally described a state of being one, a singularity. It was an existential fact, not a clinical deficit. As we moved from factories to suburbs, we began to treat this natural state of being as a pathology. We turned a shared human condition into a personal deficit.

Today, much of modern culture blames individuals for loneliness. We can read endless studies that speak to an epidemic of loneliness in the world, spanning all age groups. We are told we must work harder at our social skills - go join a gardening club or take up a sport, find a new ‘tribe’. But this rather conveniently ignores the world we live in today.

Today’s world profits from isolation. It’s more expensive to live alone, to buy food, and fund our Netflix subscriptions.

In director Akira Kurosawa’s film Ran, an adaptation of King Lear, the fool Kyoami cries out: “In a mad world, only the mad are sane!“

In a world designed to keep us apart, feeling lonely is perhaps the most sane response available to us.

The philosopher and monk Thich Nhat Hanh in his book ‘The Heart of Understanding‘ spoke often of “interbeing”.

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper... And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper... The logger’s father and mother are in it too.”

His premise was simple: nothing can exist by itself.

We are always alone inside our own experience. That part is just true. But we are also, always, held in place by things we didn’t make and can’t see - human history, the work of everyone in our world, the environment.

Oneliness offers something that loneliness does not: a context. It’s saying you are alone, but only in the way that every individual is alone. I’m writing this in my local cafe. It’s school holidays, and the place is buzzing with tables of parents, grandparents, and small children. I might be sitting alone, but I am not alone.

When we shift our lens from loneliness to oneliness, we start to look at the structures around us. We stop looking for a ‘cure’ for what is a part of the human experience.

Practising being a good human means leaning into this paradox. It means accepting our individuality while acknowledging our interdependence on the world around us.

We need to reframe the meaning - we don’t need to be ‘fixed’ - although please feel free to take up indoor soccer or join your local knitting guild. We must always remember that whilst each of us might be distinct, we are never truly separated from the world.

I’ve written before about the difference between loneliness and solitude.

There’s wisdom in recognising that solitude and loneliness are different creatures entirely. Solitude can be restorative, chosen, and peaceful. Loneliness is an unwanted isolation that can have a detrimental impact on our health.

How would your day change if you viewed your solitude not as a gap to be filled, but as a grounded base from which you relate to the rest of the world?

The goal isn’t to never feel lonely. The goal is to realise that even in our loneliest moments, we are still part of the whole.

While you are here, please check out Monika Jiang’s great Oneliness Substack and Podcast.

The Oneliness Project

Essays on loneliness as a structural condition of modern life. Developing Oneliness — a philosophical lens for living differently, alone and in relationship, at the same time.

By Monika Jiang

We’ve all done it. At work, you and your colleagues label your manager as ‘bossy’. We describe a child as ‘anxious’. We feel these adjectives are accurate; they categorise the people around us in a simple, understandable way. Labelling people like this gives us a quick and easy lens through which to filter the relationship.

And there is the pitfall: assigning the label is a thought-stopper. Once you decide your friend is a “narcissist”, you stop being curious about them. You stop looking for their capabilities and start scanning for evidence that confirms your diagnosis. This is what psychologists call “negative sentiment override“ - a filter that ensures you only see the worst in someone, even when they are trying to do better.

There is another cost to the adjective that is easy to miss. The label doesn’t just change how you see the person - it changes where you go looking for what you need. Once you’ve decided someone is cold, or withholding, or unreasonable, you have also decided what they owe you and why they are failing to deliver it. You keep returning to them with the same expectation, getting the same result, and calling it their fault. I wrote recently about the experience of trying to buy oranges from a hardware store - of persisting with a person or situation that has shown you, repeatedly, what it does and doesn’t stock. The adjective is often what keeps us in that queue. We aren’t just frustrated with the person. We have labelled them in a way that makes their limitations feel like a personal affront, rather than simply a fact about who they are.

Therapist Kathleen Smith, in her The Anxious Overachiever Substack, argues that the adjectives we use to describe the people we love reveal more about our own anxious focus than they do about the people we label. Words like fragile, sensitive, or difficult freeze someone in place - they treat personality as static, and ignore the patterns of action and reaction that both people are contributing to.

When we treat people as if these statements are true, we reinforce the behaviors that produce these statements in the first place. Treat a child like they’re very sensitive, and they tend to become more sensitive. Hide the truth from your worrying parents, and they’ll probably worry even more. We don’t cause these behaviors in others. They’re not our fault. But you do have to ask yourself, “What’s my part in all this?”

If you move through the world convinced that someone cannot cope, you will act accordingly and potentially intervene. If you label a child as fragile, you will naturally rush to rescue them. Your rescue then reinforces their belief that they cannot cope. The label creates a loop where everyone plays their assigned part, and no one gets to grow.

The question worth sitting with is not why they are like this, though that’s a start, but how am I adjusting myself because of the label I’ve assigned to them. Label someone selfish, and you probably won’t invite them to dinner. You let the label determine the relationship, and then wonder why the relationship never changes.

But here’s the uncomfortable part: the labelling itself is a way of avoiding responsibility. When I decide you are fragile, I have also decided that my rescuing is reasonable, even necessary. I never have to examine it. I’ve written about this before - the tendency we all have to monitor how other people’s behaviour affects us, while remaining genuinely blind to how our own actions ripple outward. Labelling someone keeps that blind spot intact. It gives us a clean story in which we respond to them rather than co-create the pattern with them.

You cannot force people to change their personalities. Maybe your partner has a very strong opinion on how to stack the dishwasher (I am totally guilty), but that doesn’t make you label them ‘bossy’. A ‘selfish’ friend may seem to be always talking about themselves.

What we can do is choose to stop reacting to the label and be curious, and listen and observe. When we shift from ‘they are always like this’ to ‘why are they like this’ we can start to see the patterns and understand why the person acts as they do.

We must break the nexus created by our labelling, and stop being stuck on the adjective. We don’t need the other person to be different, just for us to set aside the label and take responsibility for the relationship

Breaking that pattern doesn’t require the other person to change. It requires us to put the label down and pick up our own part of the dynamic. When we stop scanning for evidence that confirms the adjective, we sometimes find something we weren’t expecting - capabilities the label was hiding, or a clearer sense of what this person actually offers and what they don’t. That second realisation matters too. Some hardware stores are excellent. The problem was never that they didn’t stock oranges. The problem was the expectation we brought with us and the label we used to explain our disappointment.

Taking responsibility for the label - and for what we do with it - is where these questions get genuinely difficult. But it starts here, with a simpler discipline: noticing the adjective and asking what it’s protecting you from seeing.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? How often do you take a look at yourself in the mirror? I don’t mean squinting as you apply your false eyelashes; I mean taking a moment to pause and examine your reflection. Perhaps ask your reflection a question, or have a conversation? Does your reflection answer back?

I am sure I am not alone, there’s an internal critic inside me that can be almost a bully - there are moments when I say aloud ‘leave it alone’, to force the voice to go away. Most usually, the bully is hyper-focused on a small faux pas, maybe something I said to someone that, on reflection, seems clumsy or ill-judged. The bully has no nuance; it just tells me I’m an idiot. I tell it to go away.

What’s clear is that if you spoke to your friends the way you speak to yourself, you would likely find yourself very much alone. How can you be a good friend to others if you are not a good friend to yourself?

The concept of being one’s own best friend is often dismissed as soft or indulgent. We assume that being “hard on ourselves” is the only way to maintain standards. Yet, the research suggests the opposite.

The leading researcher on self-compassion, Dr Kristin Neff, notes that the number one reason people give for not being more self-compassionate is fear of being “too soft on themselves” - in other words, they confuse self-compassion with self-indulgence.

“Far from encouraging passivity or indulgence, self-compassion provides us with the strength and clarity to confront our weaknesses and make meaningful changes in our lives.”

Dr Neff notes that self-criticism often triggers our “fight or flight” response.

“We turn fight, flight, or freeze inward. So self-criticism is the fight response - like I’m going to beat myself up to try to get myself in line.”

If we beat ourselves up, regard our own failure as a threat, we trigger the stress hormone cortisol - pretty hard to learn and grow when your body is flooded with stress juice. On the flip side, when we respond with kindness and compassion to a friend or family member, we release the happy hormone oxytocin. I know which hormone I want whizzing around my brain!

This is not about excusing our mistakes. We would expect a friend to pull us up on poor behaviour or a mistake, but to do it with compassion and empathy. Sometimes, the truth is difficult to swallow, but when we know our friend is acting from a place of support, and not a desire to wound, they are holding us accountable with love, not shame.

If this is how we would like a friend to treat us, how come we don’t treat ourselves like this?

Psychologist Professor Ethan Kross coined the term ‘distanced self-talk’, opting to talk to ourselves in the third person, ‘hey David, you messed up’ rather than the triggering ‘I messed up’.

Professor Kross describes it this way:

“Distanced self-talk - like when I say to myself, ‘Ethan, you don’t need to worry about this!’ - shifts people’s perspective, making it easier for them to coach themselves through a problem like they were advising a friend. You can see people doing this throughout history, often in contexts in which they’re trying to manage themselves, from Julius Caesar to LeBron James and Malala Yousafzai. It’s not a sign of narcissism or a strange linguistic tick - it’s an emotion regulatory tool.”

This minor shift in language acts as a circuit breaker. It deactivates the amygdala, allowing the more rational parts of the brain to take over. It moves us from being the victim of our own thoughts to being a supportive observer.

Being a good human starts with the person you spend the most time with. If we cannot practice kindness toward ourselves, our capacity to offer it to others will eventually run dry.

Building this internal alliance is a quiet, everyday practice. It is the realisation that you are worthy of the same patience, boundaries, and encouragement you so freely offer to the rest of the world.

How would your internal dialogue change tomorrow if you treated yourself like a mate you actually liked?

Ted totally hustles Rupert, acting the American hick when challenged to a darts match. As the game hangs in the balance, Ted then absolutely nails the last three darts, whilst explaining to Rupert how being judgmental precludes you from curiosity:

Ted: You know, Rupert, guys have underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day, I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman and it was painted on the wall there. It said, “Be curious, not judgmental.” I like that.

Ted: So I get back in my car and I’m driving to work, and all of a sudden it hits me. All them fellas that used to belittle me, not a single one of them were curious. They thought they had everything all figured out. So they judged everything, and they judged everyone. And I realised that they were underestimating me... who I was had nothing to do with it. ‘Cause if they were curious, they would’ve asked questions. You know? Questions like, “Have you played a lot of darts, Ted?”

Ted: To which I would’ve answered, “Yes, sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father, from age ten till I was 16, when he passed away.” Barbecue sauce.

With ‘barbecue sauce’, Ted hits the bullseye and wins the game.

I’ve been very tempted to add a tattoo to my collection - ‘be curious, not judgmental’, because I’ve firmly adopted that as a core philosophy.

Too many of us are judgmental by default. When confronted with a situation, we judge what’s in front of us without context or research. We don’t consider the possibilities, which often leads us to avoid opportunities, especially when we think it might go poorly. We sidestep the potential for embarrassment, the risk of looking foolish, or the sting of social rejection.

Quite likely the cost of each judgment is small, but when seen in cummulation, it manifests as a life shaped more by what we have protected ourselves from than what we have actually experienced.

I was struck by a story told by mathematician Hannah Fry during an interview on the podcast Table Manners. She spoke about her decision to try stand-up comedy. It was not a career pivot or a quest for a new identity. She did it because she was curious.

She captured the sentiment perfectly: “It might be awful. But I want to know.“

There is a profound freedom in that perspective. Most of our hesitation stems from a rigid sense of identity. We tell ourselves, “I am not the kind of person who fails” or “I am someone who is always prepared.” When we attach our self-worth to the outcome, the stakes become too high to move. We require certainty before we take a step, and because certainty is rare, we stay exactly where we are. Our snap judgments are the wall blocking us from trying something new.

If we dig down, the judgment we make is rarely about the opportunity itself; often, it’s the fear of losing control, of being out of our depth.

For the curious, if you try and failure occurs, you have gained data. You have a memory, a story, and a clearer understanding of your boundaries. Failure is a temporary state, and it will pass.

However, if you do not try, you are left with the silence of not knowing - another small judgmental decision compounded onto an ever-growing mountain of assumptions and regrets.

I choose to be curious, it’s not bravado - far from it! It’s not about being fearless. I’m as fearful as anyone. It is about deciding that the answer to the question “What would happen?” is more valuable than the comfort of remaining unchanged.

None of this is about grand gestures; it’s the small things. Speaking up when maybe you might have been silent. Trying a new skill. Booking tickets to an event that might seem confronting (somatic dance, anyone?). It all boils down to ‘suck it and see’.

Being a Good Human is not always about getting it right the first time. Far from it. A good life is not built on a foundation of succeeding at first try, but if you don’t try, don’t show up, don’t show willingness to be curious about tackling something new, you can never expect to grow as a human.

We should not expect that we need absolute certainty to live well. We just need enough curiosity to take the step.

I turn 60 in August this year. Much to my amusement, this means I can qualify for a Seniors Card in Victoria. Benefits include free or discounted travel on public transport, cheaper entry to all manner of things from theatre shows to my local swimming pool. Oh, and free fishing licences - not of great use to me, but heck, maybe I’ll take up a new hobby.

My theatre and arts background means I can laugh about finally being able to purchase SPU (pronounced ‘spew’) - student, pensioner and unemployed - tickets. Although today, more likely just known as ‘concession’ pricing.

I also just noticed that some petrol companies offer a 4c per litre discount - now that’s valuable at the moment.

My age - 59 - means I am a ‘nine-ender’. A paper published in 2014 ‘People search for meaning when they approach a new decade in chronological age‘ found:

“Although humans measure time using a continuous scale, certain numerical ages inspire greater self-reflection than others. Six studies show that adults undertake a search for existential meaning when they approach a new decade in age (e.g., at ages 29, 39, 49, etc.) or imagine entering a new epoch, which leads them to behave in ways that suggest an ongoing or failed search for meaning (e.g., by exercising more vigorously, seeking extramarital affairs, or choosing to end their lives).”

The authors, Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield, found that people are significantly more likely to question the meaning of their lives as they approach the end of a chronological decade. The “9-enders” were disproportionately represented in behaviours that signal a search for, or crisis of, meaning: running their first marathon, seeking affairs outside their marriage, and, at the extreme end, suicide. Apparently, the final year of a decade feels like a reckoning, a time to reevaluate, recalibrate.

Of course, this all would seem like mythical luxury to people born a few hundred years ago. Modern medicine has dramatically extended our lifespan. In previous centuries, I’d probably have kicked the bucket a couple of decades ago. We have an ageing population; the number of Australians aged 85 years and over is projected to double by 2042, reaching over 1 million, according to the ABS.

Midlife has, for many, become a hinge point. Looking around my extended friendship circle, it’s difficult to find anyone who is still married to their original partner. Almost everyone I know in their late 40s / 50s is divorced or separated. Many are single and emphatic about not dedicating themselves to a new exclusive relationship, often because they carry trauma from their previous relationship, and have found they would rather be single than unhappy, or in more extreme cases, unsafe.

We are often told that staying “young” is the goal. We are encouraged to lift weights, learn languages, and perhaps invest in cosmetics or surgery to mask the passage of time. Psychologist Frank Tallis, in his book Wise, argues that we have become far better at extending the length of our lives than preparing for the psychological challenges within them.

Many of us look ahead to the next 20 to 30 years being filled with gardening, book club, and eventually a retirement home and death, and decide that ain’t for us. It’s way more prevalent amongst the women - many of whom spent decades being suppressed or worse, abused and coerced - financially, emotionally, sexually - and reckon, ‘fuck that for a life, it’s time for me’.

I write a great deal about being a good human. But there’s also the work of being a good older human. I’ve become much less interested in things, and today I am much more interested in people. We’re so driven in the earlier part of our life by the acquisition of things - roles, titles and possessions. However, as I move into what many call the “Third Act“, these goals have lost their lustre or simply disappeared. I am endeavouring to decouple my self-worth from my output.

As I near 60, I recognise my time is finite. I have been quietly pruning my possessions - there are two air mattresses in the boot of my car right now, parked outside the cafe where I am writing this, while I wait for the op shop to open. Just another small deduction from the pile of possessions cluttering my garage earmarked for disposal.

I’ve stopped trying to impress people. I’ve stopped trying to be all over LinkedIn and other social media to preserve fictional social networks. Instead, I prioritise depth of connection with a small number of amazing people - I often refer to this group as my constellation. I only invest in relationships with people who truly espouse the qualities of good humans.

Accepting that our bodies change and that some doors have closed is not an admission of defeat. It is the first step in a healthy process of development. When we stop fighting the reality of ageing, we free up the energy required to actually experience it.

Change can be difficult:

You never fully master change. There are no medals or parades, nor a graduation ceremony where you receive your honorary doctorate in adaptability. Each new change brings its own challenge. But you do get better at it.

The challenge of the second half of life is not to stay young, but to become wise - it’s this wisdom that will support you through change. I’m not sure just how ‘wise’ I am yet, but I’ve worked hard to devote time and energy to activities and people who truly matter to me. Gratifyingly, it’s opened doors to new places and experiences I’d never have thought existed.

We talk about living ‘well’ in mid-life. Of course, ‘well’ will mean different things to different people, but for me it’s about finding meaning in existence, not just in action. People, not possessions. Working on myself to be a kinder, more empathetic and supportive friend - indeed, making new friends who I suspect will be in my life for many years to come.

Most friendships don’t end in a screaming match, stomping of feet, and the protagonist striding away. More likely the opposite, there’s no great climax, no cinematic denouement, just a slow, silent receding of the friendship tide.

Sociologists study this as friendship dissolution. In everyday terms, it feels more like friendship drift, the slow loss of the shared structures that once held the relationship in place. The connective tissue of a shared life gradually dissolves, the text messages, drinks after work and birthday wishes dissipate.

I touched on fading relationships a year ago in my article “The Silent Drift: How can a Lonely Man Form Friendships?“

“How many of us have sat in a pub or cafe on a Saturday afternoon scrolling through our phones wishing we had something to do that evening. So often we fail the ‘pub test’ - can you call three friends right now who would meet you for a drink?”

Why does a faded friendship feel ambivalent? Maybe you sense a pang when you see their name, but it’s not a romantic breakup; there’s no ritual or period of mourning.

The digital age has made all of this much more complicated. I’ve always railed against social media’s use of the word ‘friend’ to describe a connection between myself and another person. It’s a ridiculously simplistic structural method of describing the complexity of human connections. There’s no rating of the strength or type of friendship.

I have, in theory, hundreds of friends, some through work, some romantically, some through shared activities. The work ones have faded completely since I left full-time work at my company last year. I see their names float past on the occasions I bother to look at LinkedIn, but apart from a couple of notable exceptions, I have had no contact with them for nearly eleven months. They haven’t reached out to me, and I haven’t made any effort either.

I have hundreds of friends on Facebook and Insta, some are more ‘friends of friends’, or people I follow because I am interested in what they say or do. Some are ‘following’ me because of my posts and interests, including Alone Rangers.

But how many of these ‘friends’ are actually active? I’ve been on Facebook for many years. I even had a trawl through the list a while ago and unfriended a bunch whose names I simply didn’t recognise. I have no memory of the people or of interactions that might have led us to be conjoined. How many friends on social media do you have that honestly are zombie connections - perhaps once were valid but now are lifeless? Yet you are seeing their photos from their Thailand holiday this week?

In recent years, I have, perhaps for the first time in my life, discovered connections with substance, rather than those with just a thin veneer of connection. A ‘like’ on social media is not the same as saying “I like you” to someone’s face; clicking the button is a low-effort signal. It’s even worse when it’s some celebrity or influencer, they want your connection and likes because for almost all of them it adds commercial value to whatever they are selling, whether it’s makeup, crypto schemes or streams of their latest song or movie. These are completely one-sided relationships - and we’re on the valueless side.

The reality is that many friendships are contextual. They are built on the “side-by-side” nature of shared activities or life stages. When the context changes, when you leave that job, finish school, or move to another city, there’s no structural integrity to survive the transition.

Perhaps we should view this drifting not as a failing, but as a form of necessary social pruning - just like when I trimmed my social media friends. We have a finite amount of emotional energy. To be a good human to the people currently in our inner circle, we must sometimes allow other connections to move to the outer rings and then fall away completely.

A friendship that lasted for a period of time was not a failure because it didn’t last a lifetime. It was simply a relationship with a natural shelf life. This is how I view my ‘work friends’, people I spent time with, enjoyed their company, but have now moved on from.

We need to change our perspective. We all have a history; some friendships may be transitory, but we can still feel a sense of gratitude for what they brought to our lives and the role they played, without taking on any guilt for the relationships ending.

As we head into the Easter long weekend, I thought it apt to pull together some reading recommendations. I love being a part of Substack, whilst the shysters and ‘growth gurus’ have crept in, thereare some genuinely marvellous writers out there producing consistently terrific writing.

I’ve pulled together five substacks I think anyone with an interest in the same things as me will find rewarding - loneliness, connection and being a good human.

Conversations on Love — Natasha Lunn conversationsonlove.substack.com

Natasha interviews people about love - romantic love, long marriages, childhood friendships, love lost and found. The format is different to what I do here: less personal essay, more carefully curated conversation. But the territory is the same. She published a book based on it, which speaks to the depth she brings. If you want to understand love by watching someone ask the right questions, start here.

Cheaper Than Divorce — John Williams, PhD cheaperthandivorce.substack.com

John writes about masculinity, emotional labour, and what actually happens inside relationships - trying to step outside the culture war long enough to look at the patterns clearly. He’s good on the double bind many men live inside: stoicism rewarded by the world, vulnerability required by love. If the masculinity thread here resonates with you, this will too.

Friendship Explained — Anna Goldfarb annagoldfarb.substack.com

Anna writes about the loneliness, effort, and desire at the heart of contemporary friendship - and about what we’ve lost now that the institutional scaffolding (school, church, proximity) that once held friendships together has largely disappeared. The burden of maintaining connection now rests entirely on us. She writes about it practically and warmly, without pretending it’s simple.

Attached: The Science of Relationships — Dr Marisa G. Franco drmarisagfranco.substack.com

Marisa is a psychologist who has spent years researching human connection and systemic loneliness. Her book Platonic is one of the better practical guides to friendship I’ve come across. Her Substack brings that research lens to everyday relationship questions. It’s a useful counterweight to personal narrative - hers is the science to go alongside the story.

Oneliness — Monika Jiang oneliness.substack.com

Monika makes a philosophical case that loneliness isn’t something to fix, but something to understand - a shared signal that can reconnect us to ourselves and each other. Her writing explores how this reshapes the relationship between “I” and “we.” More globally minded than the others, and occasionally dense, but genuinely thought-provoking. Worth it if you like to be challenged.

Each of these writers, in their own way, is working on the same problem that Alone Rangers is: what it means to be a human being trying to stay connected in a world that quietly makes that harder.

I recently came across the psychology term “hyper-responsibility“. It frequently evolves in childhood, maybe because a ‘little adult’ grew up too fast when they should have been enjoying their childhood.

These people are often the pillars, the dependable ones you can rely on, who track what others are up to, who calmly fix something that’s broken, who offer help to anyone they see as needing assistance.

I know I am often seen as dependable, I know I am resilient, self-managing, self-starting and independent. It took decades to learn that despite all this, I was lonely.

Maybe it’s because I am kind of a faux first child - there’s a substantial age difference between my older brother and me, and given he was often away at boarding school and university, not to mention he being left behind in England when we moved to Australia, I, by default, became the eldest child.

There’s a relational vacuum between you and others, because you seem so competent at managing your own life and supporting those around you, others tend to assume everything is fine with you. They assume you are fine because you appear to be fine.

You are caught in the competence trap. When you are rewarded for your reliability, you quickly learn that your value is conditional. You start to believe that if you ever stopped being the person who has it all together, people would leave. You stop being a person with needs and start being a service provider.

Some of us geeky types like to joke that we are the family’s IT support 24/7. Over time, this can start to grate when those calling on you for help get to the point where they seem not even to bother working it out for themselves; they just hit you up.

Living in the competency trap is exhausting. In her work on the mental load, French author Emma Clit explains that this burden is not just about chores, but about “managing the entire emotional and logistical infrastructure of the household”, leaving the person carrying it “invisible, unheard, and unsupported.”

But what happens when this all becomes too much? Those of us known for our dependability will often hide the cracks behind a positive facade. We worry that showing fragility or vulnerability will be a betrayal of our role, we are scared to burden others, forgetting that a healthy relationship is based on honesty and transparency - being authentically us.

A strong connection requires a certain amount of bumps; we need to be courageous and be unreliable, and let someone else take the lead for a moment. If everyone thinks we are perpetually strong and resilient, we are not being honest, and they will never truly know the real us.

Here’s the thought that’s occupied me - given all of this, when you are the person everyone leans on, who are you when you are not being useful? Is it actually that being useful has become your purpose? If this is the case, then maybe you need to fess up, stop being the pillar of reliability and ask someone else to step up to the plate from time to time.

Louis Theroux’s documentary Manosphere is all over my socials at the moment, and many of my friends have watched it - as have I now. I had seen a bunch of clips on Insta and TikTok. so was a bit cautious, I knew it would probably upset me and reinforce my nagging suspicion that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Watching rather confirmed that.

That’s why I sighed with relief with this article over my morning coffee today, ‘Guys Are Confessing How They Really Feel About The “Male Loneliness Epidemic,” And It’s Fascinating To Hear Such Different Perspectives On This‘.

“The answer is for men to support each other — resenting women and turning to right-wing grifters only makes the loneliness and isolation worse.”

A bunch of men were responding to a question posed on Reddit: “How do you feel about the ‘male loneliness epidemic?’ How have your friendships and community changed throughout your life and into your 30s?”

There are hundreds of thoughtful responses. I asked ChatGPT to help distill the responses, here’s what we came up with.

1. Many men feel the problem is real but misunderstood

Several commenters pushed back against the idea that loneliness only affects socially isolated or extreme groups. One of the early replies captured this sentiment clearly:

“People seem to equate male loneliness epidemic with incel culture… even perfectly normal average dudes and fathers are getting lonelier.”

The key point repeated across the thread was that loneliness is increasingly experienced by ordinary men with jobs, partners, and families, not just socially marginalised groups. For many commenters, the issue isn’t a lack of romantic relationships but a lack of meaningful friendships and community.

2. Male friendships tend to disappear over time

A common observation was how male friendships erode through adulthood. Patterns mentioned repeatedly:

• Friends drift after school or university

• Work and family consume most of the time

• Men rarely rebuild social networks once they shrink

The feeling expressed was not dramatic loneliness, but a quiet thinning of social life.

3. Many men rely almost entirely on their partner

Another recurring theme was that men often place their entire emotional life inside one relationship. If that relationship ends, loneliness can be immediate and overwhelming. Typical pattern described by commenters:

• Men stop investing in friendships once partnered

• Their partner becomes their main emotional outlet

• If the relationship ends, they realise they have no support network

This is why breakups, divorce, or widowhood often trigger sudden social collapse.

4. Men struggle to initiate emotional connection

Another theme was that men want connection but lack the social scripts for it. Many commenters described friendship interactions that stay surface-level:

• talking about work

• sports

• hobbies

But rarely about:

• stress

• loneliness

• mental health

• life direction

As one commenter implied, many men don’t actually know how to move a conversation deeper without it feeling awkward.

5. Loneliness often shows up as boredom rather than sadness

Interestingly, several men didn’t describe loneliness in emotional terms. Instead, they talked about:

• boredom

• lack of social activity

• absence of shared experiences

The language often sounded like:

• Nothing to do with anyone”

• Everyone’s busy with their families”

• Hard to organise anything”

This suggests that for many men, loneliness appears as a lack of structure for connection.

6. Some commenters believe the “epidemic” framing is exaggerated

Not everyone agreed with the narrative. Some argued:

• Loneliness affects both men and women

• The issue is modern social fragmentation rather than gender

• The phrase “male loneliness epidemic” oversimplifies the problem

Even those commenters often still acknowledged that many men struggle to maintain close friendships.

So what can we learn from all this? If we take a step back, the common theme is that men lose the infrastructure of friendship over time. Activities such as school, sport, and work used to provide that structure, supported by a relationship. When one or more of those pieces of scaffolding evaporate, some men don’t know how to recreate them. We men all too often don’t even have the language to start the rebuild. This is something that was rammed home to me when I started therapy six years ago after my long-term relationship ended.

Clinical psychologist Stephen Blumenthal, who has spent more than three decades working in male mental health, notes that men often arrive in therapy only after a partner insists. One patient described the idea of seeking help earlier as “like exposing my belly to my adversary without my armour on.”

There is also the challenge of what psychologists call “normative male alexithymia“ This is a learned inability to identify or vocalise emotions. If a boy is taught that showing feelings is shameful, he eventually stops recognising them in himself. Instead of saying he feels lonely or overwhelmed, he might experience chronic back pain, reach for an extra drink, or find himself driving too fast. The distress is real, but it is expressed through action rather than words.

To be a good human in this context means acknowledging the “double bind” men face: a society that tells them to open up, but often penalises them when they show genuine weakness. We reduce the shame of therapy not by demanding men change their nature, but by meeting them where they are.

How many times have you heard the truth will set you free? Maybe so, but it conveniently skips over the bit where you first made everyone in the room uncomfortable.

The phrase “and the room fell silent” definitely can prove accurate when you drop a truth bomb. Here’s one of mine.

Some decades ago, I worked at a theatre in Sydney. One or two times a year, we would order ticket stock - the blank ticket rolls that then would feed through the ticket printers in the box office when someone could come in to buy seats for a show.

We had just received our latest order, a stack of boxes holding rolls of tens of thousands of blank stock, probably enough for most of the next 12 months. They were stacked in the middle of the backroom of the box office area. I went home thinking nothing of it, until I arrived the next morning and the boxes had vanished.

A little investigation - actually a conversation with our cleaners - elicited that they had thrown the boxes out, because their instructions were that anything piled in the middle of the floor was rubbish. The big industrial bins had already been cleared that morning.

So I had to troop into the boss’s office and confess that we’d lost a year’s worth of stock because I had forgotten about the standing instructions to the cleaners. It took a day of calling around other venues to find enough blank stock without logos or branding to survive the few days until a replacement batch arrived. I suspect that if we had not been a local council venue with strict HR rules, I likely would have been fired on the spot. Instead, a warning went into my file.

My boss had a reputation for wrath, and this was in full evidence. And holy moly did I want to disappear into the ground. Given a choice between flight or fight I definitely lent towards the former.

The flight mechanism kicks in because disappearing offers a release from the weight of being seen in your most flawed state. In our digital age, this is easier than ever. We can ghost, block, or delete our way out of accountability, reinventing ourselves somewhere else where the slate is clean. At least that’s what we think in the moment.

But choosing to stay is the point where honesty ceases to be a singular event and becomes a practice.

Staying means navigating the period after you drop the bomb, and you have to start rebuilding trust and a relationship.

The psychologist and relationship expert Esther Perel argues that conflict and hard truths are not the end of a relationship; they are a threshold. In healthy relationships, she says,

“the deeper issue is recognised, and we work to chip away at it, moving from rupture to repair.”

The truth bomb is the rupture. What you do next is the repair.

It takes a certain type of resiliency not to sprint out of the room; it’s an ethical act to remain and sit in your discomfort, to show responsibility to the people you have impacted. You might not be able to ‘quick fix’, but running away is not the answer.

Likely, the others in the room will be reevaluating what they know about you, reconsidering previous interactions, and considering what other skeletons might be in the closet. By choosing to remain, you are allowing yourself to be interrogated and witnessed in your imperfections.

Some personality types simply cannot deal with this.

Narcissists embody a fundamental inability to integrate the idea of personal fallibility into a coherent self-image. The narcissist’s identity is constructed on the premise that they do not make mistakes of this kind. When evidence to the contrary enters the room, the psychological threat becomes existential.

So they don’t apologise. They explain. They reframe. They blame anything and everything other than themselves. They endeavour to defuse the truth bomb by relocating it. Somehow, by the time they’ve finished talking, the mistake has become someone else’s fault, or at least everyone else’s problem equally.

What makes this particularly insidious is that it can look, from the outside, like resilience. The narcissist doesn’t flee the room. They stay, but staying, for them, is an act of dominance rather than accountability.

For everyone else in that room, this creates a second rupture on top of the first. Not only did something go wrong, but now the person responsible is recasting what wrong even means.

For most of us, however, being a good human means owning our mistakes. Or, telling the truth when it’s likely unpalatable.

Of course, staying is only viable if there is a framework of safety; owning a mistake is one thing, jeopardising our wellbeing is another. But in most situations, it’s likely shame is the igniter of flight; we want to run because we cannot bear to see a new version of ourselves reflected back at us from the room.

Being a good human means resisting the urge to vanish. It is the realisation that integrity isn’t just found in the moment of telling the truth, but in the times that follow.

I wish there were a convenient handbook on Being a Good Human, but of course, there isn’t. It’s a messy, confounding world, and we move forward, hopefully, to the best of our abilities. We are working it out in real time, through loads of tiny decisions, making mistakes, and inevitably having moments when we wish we had handled something differently.

None of these books will fix that. That’s not what they’re for.

But we are treading paths where many others have gone before. And that does mean there are some terrific books that are not geared to telling us who to be, but give some clarity, and help us see ourselves more clearly.

Here are four books I read last year as part of writing about the Ten Qualities of a Good Human, and I’ve found them super useful. If you are looking for a place to start, these four books offer a solid foundation.

The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman

This book shows that confidence is built through action, repetition, and a willingness to be imperfect. It is less about how you appear and more about how you show up. Quietly doing the work. Backing yourself through preparation rather than performance. It is a useful reminder that you do not need to announce your confidence for it to be real.

The Road to Character by David Brooks

Brooks draws a distinction between the traits that help us succeed and the traits that shape our character. The first are often visible. The second are quieter, formed over time through choices, failures, and reflection. It is less about proving yourself and more about building a solid foundation underneath.

Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges

Change is often described as something external. A new job. A move. A shift in circumstance. Bridges focuses on what happens internally. He shows that change has stages. An ending. A period of uncertainty. A beginning. And that the uncomfortable middle is not a failure, but part of the process.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Frankl writes about finding meaning in the most extreme conditions imaginable. But the lesson is not distant or abstract. We cannot always control what happens to us. But we retain some choice in how we respond. In which we place our attention. In what we decide matters.

None of these books is an easy read in the sense of being passive. They ask something of you - maybe they trigger something inside you, throw thoughts into relief. They definitely help you interrogate your own emotions and ideas. Maybe they point you to something about you that needs to be let go or reshaped. None of them provides the answers; that’s work we all must do.

That’s why I sighed wi…

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I’m very routine-driven. I’m a clock watcher and fanatical about being on time. If I say I’ll be there at 1pm, I’ve probably been parked out front for 5 minutes. If I’m running late, I’ll message to let you know. I see it as a basic courtesy to be where I said I’d be when I said I’d be there. I’m gradually becoming more sanguine about breaks in the routine; semi-retirement does that. But when circumstances throw a spanner in my plans, it still hits hard.

We are all used to a life that follows a predictable routine. We wake up, maybe exercise, work, come home, have dinner, and generally, tomorrow looks like today. Stability is comforting. However, every so often, a significant unexpected event lands with such force that it violently rocks that predictable stability.

These are known as Black Swan events:

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term arose from a Latin expression which was based on the presumption that black swans did not exist. The expression was used in the original manner until around 1697 when Dutch mariners saw black swans living in Australia. After this, the term was reinterpreted to mean an unforeseen and consequential event.

I know plenty of people who have been made redundant, including family members. It’s an event often out of the blue. Perhaps rumours had swirled, office gossip vine humming. But receiving the news that you are being let go is the official confirmation. You are now surplus to requirements.

A great many people in my friendship circle are separated or divorced. Many of them will say they didn’t see it coming, though after the fact they often talk about the red flags they missed. These are Black Swan events

Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book ‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable‘ popularised the idea of the “Black Swan”. He describes these events as outliers with a significant impact. They are unpredictable. Yet once they have passed, we have a peculiar human habit: we construct a story that makes the event seem inevitable.

This is what Taleb calls the “narrative fallacy”. Our brains are wired to find patterns in the chaos. We look back at a sudden job loss, a global pandemic, or the unexpected end of a long relationship and point to the signs we think we missed. We convince ourselves that we should have seen it coming.

But really, no amount of navel-gazing and red-flag pondering likely would have predicted the event. There is a danger in trying to rationalise the unpredictable; it gives us a false sense of control. The whole point of a Black Swan event is that it’s not predictable, and we must be careful not to presume that because we believed we could have foretold the last one, we can anticipate the next. That just leads to a state of hyper vigilance, draining our energy as we constantly scan the horizon ahead. It detracts from the here and now and pulls us away from being a good human in the now.

In his book ‘Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder‘, Taleb suggests that what we need is to develop ‘antifragility’, finding a way to grow because of the shock of an event.

Being resilient is about surviving the shock. Being antifragile is about finding a way to grow because of it. It is about building a life where our value isn’t tied to everything staying exactly as it is.

When a Black Swan moment arrives in your life, the temptation is to immediately ask, “How did I let this happen?” This question is often a form of self-punishment disguised as logic. It assumes you had a degree of control that you simply didn’t possess.

Instead of looking backward to fix the past, we might look at how we stand in the present. If the world is inherently unpredictable, the most practical thing we can do is focus on our character. We can focus on how we treat the people next to us while the ground is shaking.

We cannot predict the outlier, but we can decide what kind of person we intend to be when it lands.

Most of us value being present. Most of us also find it surprisingly difficult to practise in the middle of ordinary life.

We notice when we’re distracted. When we’re half-listening in a conversation. When we reach for the phone again without thinking.

But noticing the gap doesn’t always translate into changing behaviour.

I began wondering whether a very small daily practice could help close that gap.

Just something simple enough to fit into the rhythm of a normal day.

Whenever I noticed a moment of genuine presence, I marked it.

That might mean staying fully with a conversation, finishing something without drifting, or realising I’d put my phone down and was actually paying attention to what was happening around me.

Each time I noticed one of those moments, I placed a small star on a card.

The interesting part wasn’t the number of stars. It was the pause required to place one.

Over time, the shift isn’t that you suddenly become present all the time. It’s that you notice sooner when you’re not, and return with less judgment.

After sharing this idea with a few friends, I decided to turn the experiment into a small physical kit so others could try it.

The Be Present Tracker Kit includes simple tracker cards, coloured stars, and a few pieces of guidance to get started. Nothing complicated. Just a small ritual for noticing moments that would otherwise pass unnoticed.

I chose to keep it physical on purpose.

Digital tools are excellent at many things, but presence often benefits from a little friction. Standing up, picking up a star, and placing it on a card interrupts momentum just enough to register what’s happened.

If you’re curious about the tracker and want to see how it works, you can explore it here:

👉

https://goodhumantrackers.com/

Small moments, simply recorded.

I’ve helmed countless meetings as a business leader, but it took me a long time to learn not to be the loudest voice in the room.

There’s a tension for a business founder and leader between ensuring your team has the space to express their opinions and views on a decision and being the person who ultimately has to own it. I know, too often in my early days, I used the force of personality to push through and override a roomful of staff. Over time, I learnt the art of waiting for my turn.

We often mistake the loudest voice in the room for the most competent. My teams might look to me as the leader to tell them what to do, to be the voice of certainty, but the reality is different; there is a difference between confidence and certainty.

“The term confidence, though, is ambiguous. One aspect of confidence is interpersonal. If you are confident, then you project an attitude of competence and authority to others. A second aspect of confidence is certainty. The more confident you are about a particular outcome, the more sure you are that the outcome will happen.”

As a leader, I need to both project certainty and display confidence in that certainty. Certainty is a conviction that a certain fact is true; confidence, on the other hand, is a measure of trust. It is the belief in our capacity to achieve an outcome, regardless of what that outcome might be. Conflating the too leads to leads to a specific type of failure known as overconfidence bias. This is where an internal sense of boldness is mistaken for an objective guarantee of success.

Recognising this gap is a prerequisite for intellectual humility. True experts often display high confidence in their methods but low certainty in their predictions. They understand the variables. As Justin Kruger and David Dunning famously noted in their research on cognitive bias, the person with the least competence often possesses the highest level of certainty. They simply do not know enough to be worried.

In our daily lives, the pressure to be “sure” can be paralysing. If we wait for certainty before we act, we may never start. Whether it is beginning a creative project, entering a new relationship, or making a career change, there is no data set that can guarantee a result.

The goal is not to become more certain. The goal is to develop “confident uncertainty”. This is the ability to say, “I do not know what will happen, but I have the skills and the resilience to handle it.”

This shift reduces the shame we feel when things do not go to plan. If we were certain and failed, we were wrong. If we were confident but uncertain and things went sideways, we were simply navigating reality.

When we stop chasing the illusion of certainty, we become more honest team members and more reliable friends. We stop pretending to have all the answers and start showing up with the quiet assurance that, whatever happens, we can figure it out together.

Last night I sat in a pub listening to a scientist explain why I am the way I am, a part of the Talks on Tuesdays series. The topic was “Why am I like this? The Science Behind Your Weirdest Thoughts and Habits“, presented by Associate Professor Jen Martin - the talk was based on her book of the same name.

She covered a lot of ground, but a part that stuck with me was about procrastination. She reassured us that it is a common human trait. Her primary point was that we need to learn to forgive ourselves for this, and instead of putting things off because they seem insurmountable or uncomfortable, we should break the challenge into small pieces. Don’t tell yourself I need to go for a run. Tell yourself I need to put my shoes on. The run takes care of itself from there. The barrier isn’t the task. It’s the story we’ve constructed around the task.

It is normal, not weird, to be scared or concerned about tackling a task we have built up in our minds as challenging. Raising tough topics with our partners or friends may be especially worrying. Perhaps something you’ve wanted to raise with your partner. Or a truth that needs telling to a friend.

This week, I’m asking you to consider becoming a paid subscriber to Alone Rangers, either monthly or annually. As an incentive, if you purchase either a monthly or an annual subscription before the end of March, I’ll mail you my Be Present Tracker Kit at no charge.

The Kit gives you a simple daily ritual that helps you notice small moments of awareness and build a habit of presence.

Subscribe now

We might fear the conflict that might arise and how the other person will react. We likely overthink, practice, and anticipate the conflict that might eventuate in the heat of the moment. By the time we’ve finished imagining it, we’ve already lived through the exhausting version - and chosen silence instead.

It turns out we are not alone in this. Research suggests that nearly seven in ten adults regularly avoid crucial conversations with the people closest to them.

According to a new Marriage.com survey of 2,399 U.S. adults in committed relationships, 70% of couples avoid at least one major relationship conversation, most commonly about emotions, sex, money, or trust.

While communication is often described as the foundation of a healthy relationship, our findings suggest that avoidance (not arguments) may be the more widespread challenge.

From emotional needs and physical intimacy to financial concerns and jealousy, many couples admit they sidestep the very topics that shape long-term connection and stability.

The most common reasons? Fear of how the other person will react, and a belief that raising the issue will damage the relationship - the very relationship they are trying to protect by staying quiet.

There’s a painful irony buried in that finding. The psychological research is clear: the more we work to avoid a difficult internal experience, the more distress we tend to accumulate around it.

It’s only natural for people to want to turn away from pain. Yet what works in the external world (running away from a tiger) often is less effective in our minds. Painting ourselves into a corner to get away from anxiety usually creates more anxiety while blocking us from the things that truly matte

Relationship researcher John Gottman argues conflict is not what damages relationships. How we handle - or avoid - it is. His motto for healthy partnership is the same as Jen Martin’s: small things often. Not grand gestures. Not perfectly timed conversations. Just small, consistent honesty, before the resentment floods the system (pretty similar to my Be Present Tracker kit, small moments simply recorded!)

Avoidance builds distance that feels inexplicable because it was constructed so gradually. Perhaps we think we are keeping the peace? Except actually, we are building barriers. We treat the discomfort as a stop sign rather than a starting point.

So what’s the smallest version of that conversation you could have? Not the full confrontation you’ve been dreading. Not the speech you’ve been rehearsing in the car. Just the first sentence. Hey, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk about.

I’ve been thinking and writing a bunch lately about how we filter and curate our outward-facing persona based on the circumstances.

For example, we often will avoid voicing the truth for fear of being penalised as a scapegoat. This endless hiding of parts of yourself can be exhausting. I saw this in my Substack Notes this morning from another Melbourne Substacker, @soniaclarke:

“Try this: describe yourself like you would at a work event. Now at a barbecue. Now in your eulogy.

Notice how different those three versions are?

That gap is where your real identity lives.”

Sonia nails it in three example situations. Most of us carry an internal editor; we monitor our tone and words, sometimes swapping out a ‘difficult’ opinion for something more palatable for that particular audience.

I spent five years commuting to and from San Francisco for a contract job. Each time I walked off the plane, I had to remember to plug in the correct dictionary:

Boot = Trunk

Thongs = Flip Flops

Lift = Elevator

In a way, this is the same thing, adjusting my language to ‘fit in’ with the people around me. I would tell myself that using Americanisms was just being polite. I’ll acknowledge this was simply to make myself understood rather than to protect myself.

If we are editing for safety because we fear creating friction, then how can we justify this as etiquette? In my article ‘The Quiet Exhaustion of Keeping Parts of Yourself Hidden‘, I make the point:

“The most exhausting thing is not hiding who you are, but carrying the constant awareness that you are doing it.”

It’s taken me a long time to realise the exhaustion I so often felt at the end of a long workday wasn’t from doing my job; it was the manual labour of self-monitoring.

There is a real cost to this habit. When we constantly suppress our authentic impulses, we are burning through our mental reserves. We talk about “holding our tongue” as a metaphor, but it’s a distinct physical and mental effort.

The big trap is that you are garbling your connection to others. They hear a faux version of you, and a percentage of your energy is given over to maintaining the facade. Some sensitive people will pick up on this - does this cultivate distrust?

I was wondering what types of people would be most prevalent in self-censoring - politicians are the obvious example. So often a prominent politician retires, and when you later see them in public, you realise you are seeing what seems like a completely different person. I was at a lecture a few years ago in London given by Gordon Brown (former UK PM) and Julia Gillard (former Australian PM). I had the chance to chat with both afterwards, and Julia was so different to the persona we see on TV during her parliamentary term, as was Gordon. Both were super funny, relaxed, smart and passionate about the cause they were there to speak about.

How on earth some politicians keep their heads on straight is beyond me. I appreciate that some are so inculcated into the persona that they truly believe they are being their authentic selves, but seriously, surely most are aware of the deliberateness of the persona they project? How exhausting it must be.

I feel blessed today to have people around me I can be my authentic self. People I trust completely to maintain confidences, to whom I can be honest about how I am feeling.

When we drop the filter, as I can do with my friendship constellation, the relief is palpable. We move out of the tunnel vision and embrace life with a broad perspective, which inevitably is enlightening. Authenticity quite literally allows us to see more of the world.

Before we can build authentic connections, we need to acknowledge the walls we’ve constructed around ourselves. These barriers often feel protective, but they’re keeping us from the very thing we crave most: genuine human connection.

None of this is about radical transparency. But we must recognise that our self-censorship comes with a cost - energy, discomfort, our capacity to connect with others. There is a tax to pay when we are not ‘ourselves’.

I’ve been wondering about the difference between ‘content’ and ‘easygoing’. I have, from time to time recently, described myself as content, but in my more insecure moments, I worry that this is seen as ‘easygoing’ - non-committal, going with the flow, happy to let others make decisions.

I think it’s at least partially true. I really don’t mind where we eat, I find pleasure equally in most things (just don’t ask me to sing and dance or listen to techno), and I’d like to think my flexibility is an expression of presence rather than absence.

I suspect I sometimes take the path of least resistance, but I still tend to be the decision-maker.

In my work life, I’ve needed to be the decision-maker for decades, leading organisations and companies comes with a price - the buck stops here. It can be exhausting, being someone everyone else looks to for direction. I’ve almost never pushed back on that burden, though in recent times I have socially. It came at the end of a busy few months, and just for once, I asked people around me to take on the ‘organiser’ role for a moment, to give me a break.

I think there is a version of easygoing, like mine, that is valid

But I’m conscious of another kind.

Because there is a point at which flexibility stops being a virtue and becomes a disappearing act. When someone is perpetually easygoing, they may be engaging in a quiet kind of withdrawal. By refusing to voice a preference, claim a boundary, or start a difficult conversation, they are bypassing the friction required for genuine intimacy. It is a defensive shield disguised as a smile.

In the past, I know I have regularly acquiesced to avoid conflict, perceived or real. Or to avoid revealing too much of myself. I’ve self-erased a thought before expressing it in case it led to disagreement. I settled for the ‘quiet life’ rather than an authentic one.

It’s not my behaviour itself, deferring and agreeing can look identical irrespective of my internal dialogue. It’s a distinction that feels different inside but outwardly looks the same, yet one that, when practised regularly, is detrimental to your relationships and connections.

When I withhold my authentic self to avoid the perceived danger of conflict, I’m opting for a false equilibrium. On the surface, I’m portraying a peaceful demeanour -- I’m not roaming round slamming doors or sitting in sullen silence. But there’s a price being paid by the people around me, others are left to carry the weight of decision-making. And that’s a burden that leads to decision fatigue and a growing distrust.

I’ve realised this is also a form of gaslighting of the person who does speak up in a pairing where one is ‘fine with whatever’ and the other person expresses a need to raise a grievance, because they are cast as the difficult one. Counterintuitively, the honest person can be seen as difficult or demanding.

True intimacy requires the risk of your authentic self being known. That means admitting when you’re annoyed, stating what you actually want for lunch, and being willing to weather the small storms of disagreement. Conflict isn’t a sign of failure; it is the sound of two distinct people trying to live honestly alongside one another.

If we prioritise peace at any price, we eventually find ourselves in a hollowed-out partnership. You cannot truly know someone who refuses to be difficult.

I’m going to watch myself. If I hear myself saying ‘I don’t mind’, I’ll need to double-check that it’s an honestly ambivalent answer, not one grounded in avoidance. It’s okay not to genuinely have a preference; that’s contentment. But if I feel I’m filtering or suppressing, I need to notice, because my silence has a price.

The Kit gives you a simple daily ritual that helps you notice small moments of awareness and build a habit of presence.

Writing and managing Alone Rangers takes up …

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