For young men, sixteen to twenty-four
Not what would a hero do. Not what would your father do. What would you do — the version of you that you already know is in there and mostly ignore. You describe him once, properly. Then, when it's late and you don't know what to do about her, or him, or the thing you're scared of, you ask him instead of the internet.
Build your north star — about an hour →Why a question, not an answer
It said What would Jesus do? and it worked — not because it told anyone what to do, but because it didn't. It was a question, it was portable, and it put the decision back on the person wearing it. This is the same move without the religion, and with one change that makes it stronger: the answer is already in you. Nobody else can supply it. Not this site, not your school, not a man with a podcast.
That is not a slogan. It is the oldest rule in the tradition this is built on. Viktor Frankl — the psychiatrist who wrote Man's Search for Meaning — put it like this:
The painter tells you what to see. The eye doctor helps you see. This is an eye doctor.
How it works
About an hour. Six questions, and they are not a quiz. Three people you admire and exactly what about them. What you want true of you at thirty. The thing you are most ashamed of. What you'd do if you knew you'd fail and would do anyway. Who is counting on you. And one sentence, yours: what your best self does that you currently don't. At the end you have a page in your own words. If a stranger reading it would recognise you, it worked. If it reads like homework, do it again.
Should I text her back. My friend is stealing. I want to quit the team. My dad and I aren't speaking. I got offered something and I'm scared. Real things, in your words.
Not advice. The move is older than Socrates: you wrote that your best self keeps promises when nobody's checking. Does that apply here? What would it look like if it did? It reflects what you already said you were, and asks you to be it. In this first version the mirror is simple and everything stays on your phone. A fuller version is coming, built to the same rules.
The four things it will never do
Not once. That is Frankl's rule, it is the sharpest criticism ever made of his method, and it is the design of this thing, all at the same time. The system does not know your best self. You define him. It only asks you to consult him.
It is a mirror with a memory. If you need a person — and sometimes you will — it will say so and help you find one.
Self-harm, abuse, someone in danger: it drops the Socratic act and gives you a human being to talk to, in your country, right now. That page was built first.
The whole point is that you have a father, a friend, a teacher, a cohort. If you are talking to this more than to people, it has failed — and it is built to notice that and tell you.
Begin
Do it somewhere you won't be interrupted. Write like nobody will read it, because in this version nobody can. Then keep the page.
Build your north star →