what’s the price of authenticity?

I’m sitting here, cross-legged on my office chair, nestling my favourite mug and sipping a freshly made coffee. Staring at the blinking cursor on the blank screen of my trusted Mac.

A blank screen. A white page. Nothingness. And that voice deep down in my soul whispering: Start. Create.

This has been the entire basis of my success. Staring at nothing, and creating something. It’s my gift. It’s what I was born to do.  

But here comes the plot twist. 

I’ve lost my authenticity. I’ve been cheating the system. And the system isn’t the government, or the competition or even my company. The system is me.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I sat down at my blank screen and created something from nothing more than the far reaches of my own mind. 

I’ve become lazy, reliant on a technology to do it for me. Eager to fill my blank spaces with concepts that I didn’t think of, words I didn’t write, stories I didn’t tell, and creations I didn’t make.

Technology wants me to rely on it to fill my blank spaces. It wants me to be consumed with easy, with fast, with good enough. The more I use it, the more I’ll need it. And that business model makes a whole lot of other people, a whole ton of money.

The entry barrier is low. The reward is fast. The output is good. 

The cost? 

Losing my authenticity.

You don’t know if I wrote this with AI, or if it’s my true opinion. You don’t know if I have a coffee. Did I type each of these letters from an idea in my own mind, or did I prompt this article? 

Some are going to argue that it doesn’t matter. The time saved is worth it. Just make content for the algorithm. The results are the same. The reader won’t know.

Fuck off. I’ll know. 

I’ll know that the neurons connected, that my brain didn’t shrink today. I’ll know that I remembered how to spell neurons. That I said the F word because I felt like it. That an opinion that was entirely my own was voiced. I’ll know that my authenticity wasn’t replaced so easily.

And that opinion leaves me at a really difficult crossroads in my career. 

I need to output faster, better, more accurately because my company survives on being competitive. I need research to be faster, answers to be found more easily, tasks to take less time. 

Where do I draw the line between losing my authenticity and losing my competitive edge? Where do all of us draw that line? Or do we quietly slip over that line, day by day, until no one has any ounce of what was authentic and beautiful about them, left.

I’m not sure I’m smart enough to answer such a global question. I know where the world is heading. I know that humans will always choose easy. 

But. And yes there’s always a but with me. 

I know that I’m not happy unless I can create. And I also know through other articles I’ve read and which you’ll have to research for yourself, because I ain’t citing shit in this piece (I can tell my Director of Strategy is going to kill me right now)—that if we don’t flex our own thoughts, our own ideas, if we don’t put pen to paper, or hands to art, or experiences to deductions, or voices to conversations. Our brains quite literally lose the ability to do so. And quickly.

Our authenticity will shrink. And our brains’ capacity to output, decreases.

So yah, I’m at a crossroads. I want the best of both worlds. Do I have the capability to selectively choose AI for research and stats, and still have my own autonomy?

The answer has to be yes. 

As a business owner, sure, speed and billable time matters. But, so does authentic creativity. If I don’t fight to push my team to be their own authentic selves in the work that they do, if I don’t ask them, every day, to sit and stare at their blank screen. 

If I don’t challenge them to find the balance between easy, and authentic creativity, then I risk losing the capacity of their brilliant minds to come up with ideas and solutions no one else is offering.

And it’s not just my team. It’s my family. My friends. And it’s yours too.

As a leader, it’s my job to be the one challenging how much technology is allowed in our work and in our lives. It’s my job to show people that authenticity matters, that creativity matters, that experiences matter. It’s my job to make sure humans matter.

And if I can’t do that, then I need to step out of the way and let others lead. 

And I’m not ready to let that responsibility go. So here I sit, with my coffee, with my blank screen. With my own words. In my happy place, where the universe meant me to be, where it all began—creating something from nothing.

I paused here. I considered running this through ChatGPT for a grammar and typo edit, but in the end, you get it just as it was meant to be. 

Authentically human. Me.

Sherry Jacobi