Tool 28 · Develop your mission
This exercise does not argue for a position, does not compare you to anybody, and treats an expanded conscience that produces nothing as a worse result than one standing commitment.
A guided 15 to 20 minute conversation using ChatGPT. Free, no account, nothing to sign up to.
01
Copy
Take the TAIU prompt.
02
Paste
Open ChatGPT.
03
Talk
One question at a time.
Copies the TAIU prompt. Paste it into ChatGPT.
You don't need ChatGPT Plus. The free version is fine.
Most people conclude they do nothing while doing a considerable amount they have never counted.
One thing you can hold in a bad year beats a plan that dies in March.
What you'll explore
A note from Mark
I am suspicious of conversations about obligation that produce feelings and no conduct. They are pleasant to have and nothing follows them.
What I notice most often is that people do not count what they already do. Work that serves people they will never meet, tax paid without arranging around it, hours given to something nobody sees. Count it first, because the picture changes and the guilt usually turns out to be about the size of the problem rather than about you.
Then set the commitment low. One standing thing you can hold in a bad year is worth more than an ambitious plan that lasts until March. Nobody is served by a lapsed intention.
And if the finding is that you are already giving more than you can sustain, the honest recommendation is to give less. That is a real result and I would not apologise for it.
What you'll get
01
What you already do
02
Where the line falls
03
Your real capacity
04
One bounded commitment
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Your TAIU handover — a portable summary of everything the conversation established.
What now?
01 · Save it
A plain list of what you already contribute, including the uncounted parts.
02 · Test it
Pick one thing, make it standing, and put it somewhere it happens without a decision.
What I would do
Count what is already there before adding anything. Paid work that serves strangers counts. So does keeping rules that only bind the honest.
Say where your line is out loud. Everybody weights the people near them more heavily and almost nobody admits it.
Set the commitment below capacity, not at it. Anything set at capacity is gone by March.
Prefer one standing thing to five occasional ones.
Accept that your contribution is small relative to the problem. That is arithmetic, not a verdict.
Test it
Ask whether you would still do it if nobody ever knew. If not, it is reputation rather than contribution, which is fine, but name it.
Ask what would have to be true for you to stop. If you cannot answer, the commitment is not defined yet.
Check it against a bad month rather than a good one.
The alternative
The obvious conclusion is that you should do more. Often that is not what the evidence says. Sometimes you already contribute substantially through work you have never counted, and the guilt is tracking the scale of the problem rather than a gap in your conduct. Sometimes your capacity is time rather than money and you have spent years trying to discharge this in money, which is why nothing has held. And sometimes you are already giving beyond what you can sustain, and the honest finding is to give less, for longer.
Think about this
Take this to Ask Mark
Interpretation, not another copy-and-paste exercise.
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If you want the same question closer to home
Further thinking
Give and Take
Adam Grant
Spending money on others promotes happiness
Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin and Michael Norton
Bowling Alone
Robert Putnam
Book
Adam Grant
Grant's finding that givers occupy both the top and the bottom of most performance distributions is the practical heart of this. What separates them is not generosity but whether the giving is bounded. If you have ever concluded that you should do more while quietly running out of road, read this before you add anything.
Article
Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin and Michael Norton
The effect depends far less on the amount than on whether the giving was chosen and whether you can see what it did. That is a useful design constraint. A small, specific, visible commitment does more for the person giving than a larger anonymous one, which is worth knowing before you set up something you will never think about again.
Book
Robert Putnam
Putnam's account of the decline of associational life is contested and largely American, and it still changes how you count your own contribution. Membership, attendance and turning up repeatedly for something small are treated here as real civic goods rather than as lesser versions of writing a cheque.
Book
Vivek Murthy
Loneliness isn't always about physically being alone. People can be surrounded by colleagues, family or social activity and still lack relationships in which they feel genuinely known.