The Moment You Choose Careless
by Michael Feeley
Nobody declares this. You don’t wake up announcing, “Today I become mediocre.”
It starts smaller. A corner cut here, a detail skipped there. “Just this once” becomes your new operating system. You tell yourself you’re being efficient. But efficiency and careless? Not the same thing.
Because here’s what happens: You choose to care less, and that choice makes you careless. Not incompetent – careless. You still know how to do excellent work. You just don’t.
The hit-and-run approach feels productive. You’re covering ground, checking boxes, leaving no fingerprints. But you’re also leaving nothing remarkable. Nothing that says, “I was here and I gave a damn.”
Now look at yourself.
You know what a professional does. Every detail matters because every detail represents a promise. The hack hopes nobody notices which promises got broken.
You know which one you are. Not by your title or your resume. By what you do when nobody’s checking. Whether you track the small things or hope they track themselves. Whether you show up to be remarkable or just not to get caught being unremarkable and a fake. Living without truth.
‘No matter what.’ That’s the professional’s anthem.
Or there’s the other side – where good enough becomes who you are, where efficient gallops into inefficient and your self-respect and personal integrity wash away. The burning desire to be ethical and just does not matter to you anymore.
Thanks – Michael (he, him)
Please share this Daily with your tribes.
This is also crucial – A Body for Justice.
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