It’s no secret that we are living through the largest transformation any of us have ever experienced.
I’d even go as far as to say it’s the biggest transformation any humans have ever experienced. And here’s the thing about transformation: it always happens in three phases. No skipping. No shortcuts.
And these phases? They’re not intellectual. They’re emotional. This isn’t something we think through—it’s something we feel through.
The problem is that most of us have never been taught how to feel through things. We’ve been trained to intellectualize everything.
But whether you’re moving to a new house, starting a new job, or facing the colossal shift from pre-AI to post-AI humanity, the first step of transformation is always the same: sadness.
Phase One: The Sadness of Leaving the Familiar
Sadness isn’t just about loss—it’s about leaving behind the comfort of what we know. We grieve our routines, our identities, and the skills we spent years mastering.
That’s the first emotional hurdle in any major transformation. And sometimes, it’s even sadness about leaving behind the version of ourselves we’ve carefully built over decades.
But here’s the tricky part—most people don’t even realize they’re in this phase. They push forward, ignoring the grief, trying to power through intellectually.
And when you don’t process sadness properly, it doesn’t just disappear. Instead, it carries over into the next phase, unprocessed and unresolved.
Phase Two: The Strangeness of the Unknown
After sadness comes strangeness—arriving in a new world that makes absolutely no sense. Suddenly, we’re the outsiders.
The rookies. The ones who don’t quite fit in. And let’s be honest, feeling outdated is uncomfortable.
This is where the massive transformation we’re experiencing becomes most evident. The old rules don’t apply, and the skills we once valued don’t seem as relevant.
We question whether we even have a place in this new reality. And that uncertainty, that unfamiliarity, breeds anxiety.
And here’s the key: if we process our sadness, we can meet strangeness with curiosity, fascination, and optimism.
If we don’t, we meet it with anxiety, fear, and anger. C.S. Lewis put it best: I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her name was grief.
And that’s where many people are today—stuck between sadness and strangeness, not processing their emotions, and arriving at the new world with frustration and resistance.
And when you’re in that state, you don’t act. You don’t move forward. You just sit there, stuck, waiting for something to make sense again.
Phase Three: The Adventure—But Not Yet
The third phase is adventure. But we’re not there yet. We’re at least five to ten years away from it.
Because before we can even think about adventure, we must go through the collapse—the implosion of institutions we once trusted.
Once upon a time, getting a degree meant securing a job. Not anymore. Doctors were the ultimate authority on health. Now? We double-check everything with Google, our aunties, and the latest trending health guru.
The news used to be the gospel. Now? It’s just another propaganda machine tailored to whatever version of reality you choose to subscribe to. Even the U.S. dollar isn’t beyond question anymore.
And we’re watching it all crumble in real time. The systems that gave us certainty are failing. The structures we once relied on are shifting beneath our feet.
And this instability has given rise to what is called fragile optimism—this addiction to certainty. Our brains crave predictability.
We want guarantees. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: we’ve never been wired for real change.
From Fragile Optimism to Agile Optimism
So, what happens when things don’t go as planned? Most people blame their ex, the other political party, their old boss—anyone but themselves.
That’s fragile optimism. It says, “If things go my way, I’ll be optimistic. If they don’t, it’s someone else’s fault.”
But we need to develop agile optimism, which will carry us through this transformation.
Agile optimism says, “I don’t care about the outcome. I care about my behavior toward the change.” The truth is we don’t control the transformation.
What we do control is how we respond to it. And that’s the real key to navigating the biggest transformation in human history.
Note: This blog post is an adaptation of the transcript from the video below, which forms part of my video series on AI.
