West Palm Beach - December 2025

14 W E S T PA L M B E A C H | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 5 COMMUNITY Did you see my Tweet about you? You’re awesome. What if, as some argue, artificial intelligence is neither artificial nor intelligent? Would that alter how AI actually affects work ? Let’s get some clarity on why this matters, even in South Florida. Thinking via AI prompts offers us a digital equivalent of a bushy- eyed college intern: eager, compliant, and exceptionally articulate, yet ultimately a toady. It might mirror what we want to hear. Are we getting what we need to hear? Exchanging thoughts with a machine is novel, even enjoyable. Setting the toys aside, AI is being cast as a cheap replacement for human labor inside organizations already operating under significant strain. UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF MASS AFFLUENCE The push for perpetual business growth is stretching human response beyond previously accepted limitations. Money is being exchanged for others’ time and loyalty, and even their health. The affluent worker side isn’t as rosy as we might think. Withdrawal, hesitation, burnout, and even “giving up” are routinely reframed as moral or performance failures. In reality, these behaviors are adaptive protective responses—forms of self-destructive behavior (SDB) that emerge when cognitive or emotional bandwidth collapses. SDB may manage choice control, but it is also a signal. When a person reaches capacity, judgment blurs, accountability frays, and reaction replaces choice. This loop of angst is not new. Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” portrayed everyman Jack trapped in a cycle of his own making. Today, the loop is amplified by the always-on digital economy. The demands of responsiveness and productivity permeate everything we aspire to and everything we fear losing. The modern workplace has turned Jack’s private struggle into a collective pattern. The scale of strain is clear. Pew Research Center reported in 2023 that 57 percent of U.S. adults feel “a great deal” of pressure to succeed, with young adults reporting the highest stress tied to work, money, and the future. Millennials and Gen Z are also the most likely to describe themselves as “burned out” or “overwhelmed most of the time.” This is no longer a cultural mood; it is a measurable psychological climate. Neuroscience helps us see what we feel. A systematic review of chronic stress research shows that sustained pressure shifts the brain toward immediate, high-reward choices despite larger long- term costs. Stress disrupts consequence evaluation and pushes decision-making toward automatic habits. Under enough strain, “Do It Again” stops being a warning and becomes an operating system where undesired consequences devour time, energy, and attention. THE ALTERNATIVE Organizations seeking healthier performance and more resilient people must interrupt these loops. We suggest seven coachable shifts to convert stress into clarity and sustainable productivity: • Normalize stress responses. Treat withdrawal and fatigue as data, not defects. • Design for rhythm, not acceleration. Cadence improves cognition. • Create psychological safety. Permit uncertainty, questions, and partial progress. • Reward clarity, not volume. The right decision beats the fastest one. • Institutionalize recovery. Rest must be operational. • Train managers to spot stress loops. Identify when choices are stress-driven . • Tie roles to service. Meaning stabilizes performance under pressure. These shifts create clarity between people and within teams. They reduce time lost to imagined problems, misaligned expectations, and avoidable conflict. Clarity aligns who, what, when, where, and—most critically—why. The absence of “why” fuels tedium, disengagement, and SDB. And now you, Jack. What about you? That’s easy: Choose clarity. Clarity bests AI—every time. Clarity YOUR NEW SUPERPOWER - By Robert Bailey -