Ask AltoWhy TAIU exists
Most people are given advice long before anybody asks them a decent question.
TAIU gives you somewhere to think your own situation through, in your own words and at your own pace.
What TAIU is for
Start with the life you are actually living
Not the version you describe to other people, and not a target somebody else set. What is here now, in your own words.
Look at it honestly
Some of it you chose. Some of it you inherited. Naming which is which is most of the work, and it is enough on its own.
Nothing has to follow
You might change something. You might decide to leave it alone, or protect it, or simply carry it more knowingly. All of those are real endings.
The free exercises are where that starts, not the whole of it. They run across three tracks: develop yourself, develop your business, develop your mission. Nothing you write is scored or counted, and you can stop at any point without having finished anything.
What TAIU believes
The question matters more than the answer
Most bad decisions are well-executed answers to badly framed questions.
Evidence before conclusion
What you have actually done tells you more than what you would like to be true.
The alternative is unthinkable
Every decision has one. Naming it is usually the moment things become clear, and that applies to whatever you have declared unthinkable about your own situation.
Nothing has to change
Understanding something better is a real outcome. Leaving it as it is can be the honest conclusion.
If something does need doing, keep it small
Nothing here asks you to act. But when you have decided something needs doing, the small reversible version of it teaches you more than the document does.
Where it came from
TAIU came out of a life spent meeting people.
Mark Eve grew up in East London, in a family without much money. He took on responsibility early. Then he spent more than twenty years moving between countries, for work and out of curiosity. Different cultures, different religions, different businesses, different ideas of what a good life looks like.
Success, failure, money, the absence of money, family, distance and a great many people met along the way. What all of it argued against was the idea of a single correct formula. TAIU is what came of that: the questions, written down and given away, so somebody else can think their own situation through.
He is still working things out too. That is the point rather than a caveat.
More about MarkThe thinking behind it
The book came first. TAIU is what it looks like in use.
The Alternative Is Unthinkable is about the thing we refuse to consider, and what it costs to keep refusing it. Everything on TAIU inherits that: understanding before intervention, evidence before conclusion, and the person as the authority on their own life.
If you are here for how organisations use TAIU with the people they work with, that is set out separately on the page for professionals and organisations.
Common questions
What is TAIU?
TAIU is a place to think something through. It is built around the questions people carry around and rarely get asked, and around My Tree, a private view of a whole life over time. Nothing here scores a person or assumes something needs fixing.
Is it really free?
Yes. The Clearing is free. You can start without an account or a card. Create a free account when you want to save your work and return to it. The digital book and audiobook are a separate £7.99 purchase.
Where does the thinking come from?
The thinking comes from The Alternative Is Unthinkable, Mark Eve’s book about the alternatives we stop allowing ourselves to consider.
Can an organisation use TAIU with its people?
Yes. Employers, universities, charities and clinicians can fund access for the people they work with, without seeing what anybody writes.