My AI Wrote Perfect Blog Posts, and I Felt Nothing. Here's Why.

I’ve been using AI to help write my blog posts, and the results were objectively great. They were well-structured, clear, and produced in a fraction of the time. Yet, looking at the finished work, I felt nothing. There was no pride, no sense of gratification. I was active but not fulfilled. It led me to a crucial question. If the final product is perfect, why does the human effort behind it matter so much?

This experience echoes what many of us face in our daily lives - being busy but not productive, constantly active yet somehow empty. It’s part of a larger pattern I’ve observed: an epidemic of emptiness where we mistake optimization for fulfillment.

An Unexpected Lesson on Value

The answer started to form, unexpectedly, while I was on a summer vacation. It’s relatively easy to put a value on material things. But attributing value to immaterial things and experiences is far more difficult. There isn’t a universal measuring system for a conversation that changes your perspective or the feeling of mastering a new skill. That value is personal. Because we are driven by emotions, our perception of what’s worthwhile can be altered by anything. It’s about how much we enjoyed the journey and how fulfilled we felt afterward.

The Marathon is the Cherry, The Training is the Cake

Before I go back to writing, let me share a more visceral example. Last year, I signed up for the Paris marathon with a great plan to train hard. This year, however, life happened. I couldn’t train as much as I wanted, and I missed many of the long runs I had planned.

Standing at the starting line in April, I felt like an impostor. I knew I could run the distance, but I felt I hadn’t truly earned my place there. Then, somewhere around the 10-kilometer mark, it hit me. Running the actual marathon is just the cherry on top of the cake. It is the tip of the iceberg. The actual enjoyment, the real value, comes from having done all the training. It comes from the cumulative effect of all the daily actions that led to the starting line. I had confused the final event with the journey that gives it meaning.

Writing Isn’t About Words, It’s About Thinking

That brings me back to those perfectly crafted, soulless blog posts. It’s a similar story. I got the finished product, but I skipped the entire experience that gives it meaning. I understood that writing is not just about producing text. It is a brain exercise. It is the act of laying out your thoughts and structuring your arguments. It is the process of building something that might move another person. AI robs the writer of the practice needed to improve these skills. It bypasses the essential work of reflection that turns unstructured thoughts into clear, actionable wisdom.

This connects directly to why structured journaling and reflection can be so powerful for personal growth - it’s not just about recording events, but about the thinking process itself.

The Process Is the Point

This is not just about writing or running. It is a universal principle.

• You can use an AI to beat any human at chess, but you will never feel the thrill of outsmarting an opponent yourself.
• You can ride a motorcycle faster than the most elite cyclist, but you will never know the satisfaction of conquering a mountain with the power of your own body.
• You can take a cable car to a mountain summit for a perfect photo, but you will miss the entire journey of the hike that gives the view its meaning.

In each of these cases, the tool provides a shortcut to a result, but it bypasses the very experience that gives the activity its meaning.

Using AI as a Partner, Not a Replacement

But this doesn’t mean we must abandon these powerful tools entirely. The key distinction is whether AI replaces the core effort or enhances it. When used intentionally, AI can act as a powerful partner in our growth, rather than a simple shortcut.

Instead of having an AI win a chess game for you, you can use it to get personalized lessons on the games you’ve already played. An AI can’t push the pedals on a bicycle for you, but it can analyze your ride data to teach you more about pacing and recovery. It can give you tips on clay modeling techniques to try with your own hands.

In my own case, I can use AI to get proper feedback on what I write or have my text corrected by a “native speaker” to sharpen my skills. I can even engage with it creatively, using AI to generate art for a thumbnail that properly reflects the text I poured my own effort into creating. The goal is to keep the human at the center of the activity, using technology to deepen our engagement, not to outsource it.

This philosophy aligns with choosing to create more and consume less - using tools to enhance our creative work rather than replace it entirely.

Making Your Activities Matter

My marathon epiphany taught me that a fulfilling life isn’t accidental, it’s consciously designed. True satisfaction doesn’t come from a single, isolated achievement. It comes from the feeling of progress you get by aligning your daily actions with your deepest aspirations.

This is the real work. It means setting clear Goals that reflect what you truly want. It means building consistent Commitments to the small, daily habits that bring balance and purpose to your life. The value is not just in crossing the finish line. The value is in knowing that the hundreds of activities you chose to do, day by day, were the ones that truly mattered.

This approach to connecting daily actions to bigger dreams is exactly what transforms busy work into meaningful progress. When you can see how today’s small efforts build toward tomorrow’s achievements, every action gains deeper significance.

Photo by Sue Winston on Unsplash