I wonder, sometimes, if people have always worried about their place in the world, their relevance. Now, surrounded by AI that can already do more in a second than I can do in a day, I feel it: a fear that maybe what I have to offer isn’t enough. I mean, that’s something I’ve always struggled with. I wonder if I’ll get replaced — and soon — by something that doesn’t need sleep, rest, or quiet.
It’s not logical, I guess, to put so much thought into something that might not matter in the end. Oddly, I’ve come to believe that what’s illogical is often the thing that makes us most human.
A few years back, I was working on a project at home that was way outside my comfort zone. We were finishing our basement, and I had to fill in an old window. It was a window in the basement, which meant the cavity had to be filled with rebar-reinforced concrete then sealed with a waterproof sealant before we could build.
I spent hours drilling into the concrete where the window had been, setting rebar, framing up both sides of the space, and scooping in concrete one shovelful at a time. I was perhaps halfway done, and spent. I sat on an overturned bucket, head in my hands, breathing hard, and questioning why I ever thought this was a good idea in the first place.
I do overwhelm really well.
That’s when my neighbor walked over.
There was no fence between our yards — just the grass that went to the property’s edge, then his beautiful garden filled with fruit trees.
He didn’t ask if I needed help. He didn’t even pause to say anything to me. He just picked up the shovel and started moving concrete.
I rested a moment longer, grabbed another shovel, and started moving again.
When the gap was almost full and we had to frame up the last few inches, we swapped our shovels for our gloved hands, scooping and pressing concrete into the space until it was completely filled. We tamped it down a few times, filled it some more, and left concrete oozing out the top for good measure.
It was after dark when we finished, and when my neighbor took off what had been new gloves, his hands were bright orange from the dye in his gloves, stained like a surgeon’s hands dipped in Betadine.
For almost a week, his orange hands reminded me of the work he did every day in the hospital, caring for other people’s hearts. And of the work he did that night, standing beside me in the dirt and concrete because he knew I needed help. In a literal way, caring for my heart as well.
No algorithm could have done that.
I haven’t thought about that moment in a few years, but it used to cross my mind almost every time I saw my neighbor. It came to mind again as I considered what that experience says against the backdrop of a world where the talking heads keep telling us that our jobs — and our lives — are going to be taken away by “progress.”
Sure, machines have made so many things easier. But in that ease, we’ve started to believe that speed and efficiency are the only things that matter.
I’ve certainly been guilty of that; constantly trying to optimize my own output and letting go of things that matter in favor of getting more done.
The work of being here — really here — doesn’t care about efficiency.
We’re living in a time when productivity feels like the end-all, be-all of existence. The world tells us to move faster, to optimize everything, to chase more — buy more.
And yet, the moments that stay with me are the ones where someone stopped what they were doing to say, “Let me help you carry that.”
Nobody knows where all this leads. Humans have always found ways to evolve alongside technology, using it to improve our lives and work. I’m still working out how that looks in my own life. AI is great for writing boilerplate code, for example. But I’m still figuring out how to balance ambition with presence, technology with humanity, and noise with quiet.
I’ll always be learning.
I know this much, though. As long as we keep choosing to show up for each other, humanity will never go away, no matter how impressive AI gets.
The neighbor who scooped concrete with me could have spent that night doing something easier, more logical, more efficient. But he didn’t. He stood in the dirt with me because he knew that the thing that matters most isn’t always the thing that pays the bills or makes the highlight reel. It’s the thing that says: you’re not in this alone.
That’s why I still believe — more than ever — that humans have never been more relevant.
And that is more than enough.
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