The plant among the hemp

Xunzi says: when the artemisia grows among hemp, it rises up straight without anyone tying it.

He's not talking about plants. He's describing people.

When I ask clients about their five-year plan, they talk about habits and discipline. When I ask who they spend their evenings with, and what those people talk about, the picture of their last five years appears instantly, without any mention of willpower.

You are much more porous than you like to think. You mirror the pace of the room. You take on the vocabulary. You start finding reasonable what everybody around your table finds reasonable. This is not weakness. It's how a social animal survives.

Then the useful question isn't "am I disciplined enough". It's "is this room good for the person I'm trying to become".

That question has a hard version and a gentle one. The hard version is leaving somewhere that's actually fine, and costs money, and has a person you like in it. The gentle one is adding one table, once a month, where the conversation is a bit larger than your current one.

Do the gentle one this month. The hard one, at least name it out loud to somebody.

MOJOWAY is one of those rooms: a place where the conversation is about patterns, not blame. Self-awareness grows fastest where honesty is normal.