Insights Blog

Four Pillar Friday

April 17th, 2026 // Adam Bruderly

Physical

A new study published this week in BMJ Open tested five of the most popular AI chatbots including ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, Grok, and DeepSeek by asking them health and medical questions across five categories. Roughly half of all responses were deemed problematic. Nearly 20% were classified as highly problematic.

The part that stood out wasn’t just the error rate. It was that the answers were consistently delivered with confidence and certainty, with few disclaimers. The tools didn’t say I’m not sure. They answered like they knew.

I use AI every day. I think it is remarkable. But your body is not a search query. A pulled hamstring, a suspicious mole, a lingering fatigue that doesn’t make sense. Those deserve a real discussion with someone who can see you, ask follow-up questions, and be accountable for what they tell you. AI can be a starting point. It cannot be the answer.

Mental

Last year Reuters reported on a growing number of people turning to AI chatbots for emotional support and therapy, not because they prefer it, but because the traditional mental health system is overloaded, slow, and often out of reach. Pierre Cote, who struggled to access care for PTSD and depression, built his own AI tool and says it saved his life.

But clinicians quoted in the piece raised a concern we need to be thinking about with all of this: AI can create the illusion of a therapeutic relationship without the reciprocity, accountability, or genuine human connection that real healing often requires. There are already lawsuits. There are already harms. There is already regulatory backlash.

The same quality that makes AI therapy appealing, it is always available 24/7, always patient, always responsive  is also what makes it risky. Because availability is not the same as safety. And simulated support is not the same as being truly heard by another human being.

Financial

This week on Substack I wrote about a number I think about more than most: the number of days in a reasonably healthy life. 31,025. That is 85 years.

I am 46. As of this week I have used 17,001 of them.

I keep a chart on my wall called My Life In Weeks. Every week of my life represented as a small square. I fill them in as they pass. Most people who see it for the first time think it is morbid. I think it is clarifying.

Because time is the only currency that cannot be earned back. Not money. Not productivity. Not optimization.

You have heard me talk about this over and over again. Sharing essays, books, podcasts, etc…I am sure you might be sick of it. But this work, I think more than most, has helped me be much more present in my life. And what I hope is you give it a try for yourself. If you want to see your own number [build your Life In Weeks chart here →] It is harder the first time than you think. That is exactly the point.

Spiritual

Bronnie Ware said this was a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called comfort of familiarity had overflowed into their emotions as well as their physical lives.

I wish I had let myself be happier.

Of the five regrets she catalogued from people in their final days, this one is one I think about often. Not because it is the most dramatic, it isn’t. But because it cites a word we use almost each and every day. The most invisible while it is happening.

We don’t usually notice we are holding happiness at arm’s length. We call it being realistic. Accepting the facts. We call it not getting ahead of ourselves. We wait for the circumstances to be right, for the hard thing to pass, for the moment to earn it. And somewhere in that waiting, the moment goes. And doesn’t come back around.

What I have found is that happiness is less about what is happening and more about what you are letting in. It isn’t a destination. I believe it tends to be moments. The sunrise on a run you almost skipped. The conversation that went longer than you planned. The ordinary day that turned out to be exactly enough if you were actually there for it.

Connecting with others helps. Serving others helps. Getting outside of your own head and into the world be it nature, people, purpose beyond yourself that helps more than almost anything.

The spiritual pillar is about meaning. And meaning has a way of showing up when you stop waiting for permission to be present in your own life.

And In The End

From all of us at The 9:03 Collective: thanks for reading. Keep showing up. Stay curious. And never forget that the clock is running, so make it count.

If you’ve been enjoying Four Pillar Friday, the best way to support is simple: share it with a friend, forward it to someone who might need it, or subscribe if you haven’t already. The more people we reach, the more conversations we can spark about living with intention.

Until next week—keep building your moments.

The Journey Team & The 9:03