Imagine that what you are about to do or say were to be portrayed accurately on the front page of the New York Times.
ChatGPT says: That’s a solid gut check. It taps shame, pride, accountability and reputation all at once. If you can stomach an accurate front-page story of your choice, you’re probably in the clear. If you’d start explaining or hiding, you know you’re drifting.
A few things this rule gives you:
I. It forces clarity. You stop rationalizing and look at your motives without fog.
II. It adds a real audience. Most bad decisions thrive in imagined privacy.
III. It checks your status cravings. If you’d be embarrassed in front of people you respect, that tells you more than any abstract rule.
IV. It scales. It works for tiny choices and for life-altering ones.
A complementary twist you might like:
Ask yourself whether the people you admire most would read that same front page and think, “Yeah, that tracks. That’s Luke.” If the answer is no, slow down.
LF: “We don’t always know how much trauma we’re inflicting on others. I just spoke with a woman who is still disturbed by this image in her mind of me jogging shirtless down Burton Drive in Beverly Hills 29 years ago.”
