I have tested every AI tool you can name. I have read more books in the last two years than most people read in a decade. I have built multi million $ companies, operated inside tech at a high level for the last 5 years, moved to three different cities, and traveled more than most people twice my age, all before turning twenty.
My name is Galileo Wilson. I am nineteen years old. And I am telling you, from everything I have seen and done so far: we have a problem, and it is not the one everyone is talking about.
People have become addicted to reasoning.
Not the good kind. Not the "think before you act" kind. The kind where you cannot buy a pair of shoes without checking three reels, two YouTube reviews, and a Twitter thread from someone you have never met. The kind where you cannot pick a morning routine without reading a study about cortisol levels and what some former Navy SEAL does at 4:30 AM. The kind where every single life decision, from what you eat in a day to who you spend time with to what you do on a Sunday afternoon, has to be validated by data, research, or someone else's opinion before you allow yourself to commit to it.
That is not intelligence, that is dependency. On stupid things.
When Did We Stop Trusting Ourselves?
There was a time when people just did things. You liked painting, so you painted. You enjoyed running, so you ran. You had a weird hobby that nobody else understood and you did not care, because it was yours and it made you feel something.
Now? You like painting, but some guy with 500,000 followers says art is a waste of time unless you monetise it. So suddenly you feel strange about painting. You start doubting it. Maybe he is right. Maybe you should be learning to vibe code instead. Maybe your free time should be "optimised." It makes you feel miserable.
The internet & AI gave us access to all the information in the world within seconds, and instead of using it to make braver decisions, we use it to make safer ones. We crowdsource our taste. We outsource our judgment. We let strangers on the internet shape what we value, what we pursue, and what we think is worth our time.
And most of the time, we do not even notice it happening.
The Research Trap
I am not against learning. I read constantly. I test tools obsessively. I believe in being informed.
But there is a massive difference between research that leads to action and research that replaces action.
Most people are stuck in the second category.
They spend three weeks researching the "best" time to wake up before they do what their body wants. They watch forty hours of gym content before they do a single workout. They read seventeen articles about starting a business and never register the company.
The research becomes the activity. It feels productive. It is not.
And the more you research, the more conflicting information you find, and the more paralysed you become. One expert says cold showers change your life. Another says it is pseudoscience. You end up knowing everything about a subject and doing absolutely nothing about it.
That is not wisdom. That is a trap.
Everyone Is Different, and That Used to Be Obvious
The entire beauty of being human is that we are all wired differently. Different things make different people come alive. Some people thrive waking up at 5 AM. Some people do their best work at midnight. Some people need structure. Some people need chaos.
None of that is wrong. All of it is personal.
But we have created a culture where everyone is supposed to follow the same playbook. The same morning routine. The same productivity system. The same definition of success. And if your natural rhythm does not match whatever the current meta is, you feel like something is wrong with you.
Nothing is wrong with you. The framework is wrong.
You cannot optimise a human being like you optimise a landing page. People are not conversion funnels. The things that matter most: your passions, your relationships, your sense of meaning... do not fit into a spreadsheet or a protocol, because....
Everyone is different.
I have lived in three cities before the age of twenty. Not because some article told me relocation was the optimal career move. Because it felt right. Because I was/am curious. Because I trusted my gut more than I trusted someone else's ten-step framework for "making big life decisions." And every single time, it worked out, not because I had a plan for every detail, but because I was willing to move without needing the entire picture first.
The Opinion Epidemic
People do not just research decisions anymore. They need permission from the internet to make them.
Should I quit my job? Let me ask Twitter. Should I move to a new city? Let me see what Snapchat thinks. Is this relationship worth staying in? Let me find a podcast that validates how I already feel.
When did we start needing a stranger's approval to live our own lives?
Your taste is yours. Your instincts exist for a reason. The fact that some guy with a big following disagrees with your preference does not make your preference wrong. It makes it different. And different is not a problem. Different is the whole point that makes you.
Friendships, Free Time, and the Death of Spontaneity
This has crept into how people handle their personal lives too.
Friendships get evaluated like investments. "Is this person adding value to my life?" I have heard actual human beings ask that seriously, about their friends, as if relationships are subscription services you cancel when the ROI drops.
Free time gets optimised into oblivion. Every hour has to be "intentional." Rest is rebranded as "recovery" so it can be justified within some performance framework. You cannot just sit and do nothing anymore without feeling guilty about it.
Spontaneity is dying. People plan every detail of every day and then wonder why life feels mechanical and empty.
I understand the appeal. Structure feels safe. Optimisation feels smart too. But life is not a system. Some of the best things that will ever happen to you will come from unplanned moments, irrational decisions, and things you did just because they felt right, not because a study told you to.
What I Actually Think You Should Do
I am not writing this to tell you to throw your phone in the ocean.
Information is powerful. AI is powerful. Research is powerful. I use all of it, every single day.
But I use it to enhance decisions I have already made, not to avoid making them.
If I want to learn something, I learn it. I do not spend two months deciding whether it is the "optimal" thing to learn. If something interests me, that is enough of a reason. If something feels right, I trust that feeling first and verify second, not the other way around.
Most people have it backwards. They verify first. They do second. And by the time they have verified enough to feel confident, the moment has passed, the energy is gone, and they have moved on to researching the next thing they will also never do.
So here is what I would say:
Stop waiting for any permission. Nobody is going to tell you that your instinct is correct. That is the whole point of an instinct.
Do the thing that excites you even if you cannot justify it on paper. Not everything needs a business case.
Protect your taste. If you love something, love it. Do not let a stranger's hot take erode something that brings you genuine joy.
Accept that you will be wrong sometimes. Being wrong and learning from it is infinitely more valuable than being permanently undecided and learning nothing.
Stop comparing your rhythm to someone else's system. Build your own. The only metric that matters is whether you are actually moving.
The World Does Not Need More Researchers. It Needs More Participants.
This information age gave us everything we could possibly need to make great decisions. And somehow, we used it to make fewer decisions than ever.
The people I respect most are not the most informed. They are the most active. They read, they think, and then they move. They do not wait for certainty because they understand that certainty is a myth and that action is the only thing that actually produces results.
You do not need another article, another course, another framework, another opinion.
You need to pick something, commit to it, and learn by doing.
The only thing standing between you and the life you actually want is the habit of asking everyone else whether you should go after it.
Stop asking.
Start.
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