Work happy; AI-powered romance; fearful book bans: Newsletter 26 November 2025
Newsletter 125. When it’s time to change jobs, how AI destroys the writer-reader relationship, an AI-powered romance bookstore, plus three people to follow and three books to read.
The pursuit of career happiness
Should you be looking to change what you do for work?
As the Thanksgiving break approaches (for US workers), it’s a time to be reflective, a moment when you can poke your head up and think strategically about your future.
To put things simply, now is the time to ask “Is this a good job?”
Looking back on 45 years of employment, here are the questions I was asking myself when determining if it was time to make a change.
- Do I like the people I’m working with?
- Do I like my bosses? Do I trust them?
- Am I working on something that matters to me?
- What percentage of the time am I doing things I like or love?
- What percentage of the time am I doing things I dislike or hate?
- Can I handle the level of stress? Does it interfere with my happiness when I’m not at work?
- Are there opportunities to learn new things, take on new responsibilities, and get ahead, not on terms dictated by the company, but on my own terms?
- If I have an idea, is it most likely to be nurtured, rejected, or stolen?
- If I were to keep doing this same job for the next three years, would I find that fulfilling?
- Am I being paid what I’m worth?
A lot of this is about whether you like what you’re doing every day. You’re going to spend a huge chunk of your life working. If that time is not worthwhile and you can change things, try to change things. But that can only happen if you take a moment to think carefully about your situation. If you go 100 miles an hour all day at work and then immediately forget about it when you’re not working, nothing is going to change.
Notice that money is not the main motivating factor here. Everyone I know who took more money to do a job they disliked was eventually sorry that they made that decision. It’s not worth it.
People who have lost their jobs have fewer choices (and my heart goes out to them). People with jobs have the luxury of imagining something better without the pressure of losing a paycheck. If you have that luxury, don’t squander it. Be introspective and thoughtful from time to time.
You don’t want to wake up ten years from now and say “Why did I spend my time doing that?
News for writers and other who think
Blair Enns points out that writing tells people who you are and what you think — and AI-generated writing destroys that relationship. It may save you time, but cost you respect.
Romance bookstore owner Marissa Coughlin is using AI to power the back-end of her business Swoon City, including recommendations on inventory, cataloguing, and marketing.
Pen America’s report on book banning says it has become normalized in America, and fear fear, not legislation, is behind most of the bans. “PEN America identified 2,520 book ban cases where the bans were influenced by pressure imposed from the presence or threat of state laws,” but only 3% were actually arose out of legislation.
Mega-bestselling author James Patterson dishes on his collaboration style: his collaborators do the research, but he shapes the voice and the storytelling.
Amplify Publishing is establishing a Thinkers50 imprint. Expect some great books to come out of this partnerships. (The news is so new there is no link — but here’s some of what they did together at the latest Thinkers50 event.)
Jane Friedman writes “I believe it’s unsustainable for the industry to exclude, prohibit, or otherwise shame books that have somehow been augmented or aided by AI. Such policies will increasingly sideline worthy work as the technology becomes accepted and widespread.” This is the truth.
Three people to follow
danah boyd, long-tenured deep thinking social internet researcher
Patrick Grady, revolutionizing biopharma with new approaches to data and AI
Michelle J Raymond, LinkedIn whisperer
Three books to read
How to Synthesize the Future: A Science Based, Rigorously Imaginative Design Methodology to Help You Build Better Futures Faster by Cecilia MoSze Tham and Mark Bünger (Futurity Systems, 2025). This book is a kickstarter project, a detailed four-step project for creating what hasn’t yet been invented.
Apple: The First 50 Years by David Pogue (Simon & Schuster, 2026). A deeply researched history of the most influential company in the world.
What to Eat Now: The Indispensable Guide to Good Food, How to Find It, and Why It Matters by Marion Nestle (North Point Press, 2025). How food gets to us, what it does to us, and what it does to the planet.