Heya beautiful soul,

I know it's been a while since you heard from me, and while working on different side projects, these little letters of mine have lost their importance.

Sorry about that!

Well, today is Nyepi, and I just had a 2-hour journaling session. Just me, myself, and my journal while enjoying the silence.

I reflected a lot on things I need to face, the person I want to become, and the habits that support my way of being.

And while writing in my journal, I suddenly realized that writing on paper is something authentic. Obviously. But bear with me for a second and think about that.

AI is omnipresent right now. People tend to use ChatGPT, Claude, or any other form of AI for literally everything (myself included), and it honestly makes life so much easier.

A few personal examples:

• I don't use Google anymore. I just open ChatGPT and ask her (yup, she's a female for me) directly, and she gives me the answer. That's very convenient and efficient as well.
• I received an annoying email and needed to reply very formally. This normally would take me a bit, but with ChatGPT, I had this email ready in seconds.
• I use ChatGPT to analyze my content and go through my analytics with her. She summarizes for me what worked and what did not. What my community is wanting more of and what doesn't provide any value. That's a smart move for everyone involved.

Anyway, back to the journal-on-paper thing: because this is literally a moment when no AI helps you write. You write imperfect sentences, without any structure, or without creating a whole storytelling thing of your thought. You don't overthink your thoughts while writing. It's literally your thoughts, as they are, on paper, and that's something very pure and honest.

And the funny thing is, we (myself included) tend to polish our words in some sort of way, and it's not wrong at all because we learned in school that well-written papers are easier to read, and we also prefer a well-written book over a bad one. However, with AI, this got a bit out of control.

Let's take myself as an example. Yes, I write stuff by myself, I come up with content ideas, or transform an idea so it suits my style and niche.

But if I'm being very honest with you, I also did and do use AI when writing captions, IG stories, and used it even for newsletters 🫣.

When I discovered ChatGPT, I used it a bit too much because it was so fascinating. It took me a bit to realize that the things I wrote don't sound like me anymore. It also felt like cheating, and I felt guilty. Guilty of preaching authenticity and then using ChatGPT for writing.

And it doesn't matter if I exchanged a few words afterwards just to make me feel better.

So I stopped.

Not completely, but I use AI for prompting, so I have a better idea of what to write, and I also use it to fix any grammar errors I make. I'm not a native English speaker, and although I say my English is pretty solid, I still make many mistakes and definitely could invest time to get better at grammar and stuff.

But being imperfect and making mistakes make us human, right?

Also, does it really matter that we make mistakes and that we share something imperfect with the world? Why are we always so worried about sharing more unpolished stuff with others? Why always show the best side of ourselves?

And while I was asking myself that, my newsletter popped into my mind. Maybe this is the purpose of it. Sharing honest and authentic thoughts with you as they are. Yes, without the help of any AI. Just sharing my honest thoughts about something with you, like I do in my journal.

So, I hope you're ready for weird, unpolished thoughts with maybe a few grammar errors (I try to put on my editor hat to make it easier to read), because here we are, re-introducing my mindful letters.

And before I forget, you can always reply directly to this email if you have any suggestions for topics or if you want to know more about something.

Talk to you soon,

Shila