Your Environment Is Your Algorithm

We don't complete tasks for insight. We complete tasks to stay busy and pursue work. You are either an individual that gets to pick your problems that you want to solve or you work to solve others' problems that are assigned to you. We diligently consume content and want to build businesses, projects, whatever the latest shiny object is but we often forget about the deeper meaning, understanding, and true novelty that allows us to be more in touch with our purpose.

Many of us feel like information scavengers in an infinite digital junkyard, chasing quick hits instead of value. It's like autopilot. That junkyard is being rebuilt, not just by humans, but by AI systems that generate more of what we already consume. For example. Multiple AI platforms are being developed as a TikTok for cinematic movies, allowing users to scroll through endless mini movies on their phones. Within that junkyard, we are told that the mental construct we need to be chasing is happiness, yet most people's idols never chased happiness. Think about your favorite entrepreneurs, artists, athletes. They chased mastery, impact, legacy. They didn't chase "happiness". They chased purpose and happiness followed. Many of them chased a void, an idea for years before any sort of reward or feedback that they were worthy.  

Your environment shapes your reality physical and digital. Think of every component of your environment as an input: People, Places, Phone, etc. Your environment is a mirror. It not only reflects where you are but reinforces who you believe you are. You fall to the level of your surroundings. Subconsciously, you calibrate your self-worth to what surrounds you. If you’re around a boss who undermines you, your self-esteem drops. If you are only around winners, you become so self- conscious that you will rise to the standard. Every human perception is relative. It is a reference frame of how we view the world. Your perception of "normal" is environmental conditioning. Your family and friends during your upbringing are your closest reference points. As you go through life, you cling to those who make you feel comfortable, those who were your reference point at some stage. Everyone nods at the idea that you become the sum of the people you spend the most time with. Yet few stop to question why they still orbit those they no longer wish to become.

As you grow, not everyone is meant to stay. People must add value to the environment you seek. Everyone has a vision. The vision is curated from an environment.  If they build an environment that values laziness, inadequacy, complacency, they simply don’t have space. As you get older, you start to see things differently. You realize there are friends you no longer look up to, only down upon. Family members you can’t take advice from. Bosses who weren’t helping you rise, but holding you down. Life is too short to stay in rooms that shrink you. Value is not found in proximity; it’s found in alignment. If their environment that values laziness, inadequacy, complacency then they simply shouldn't have space in yours. Your environment is your reference point for change.

The people around you emit a gravitational pull, energy, standards, ambition. Social cognition proves it through thought patterns. You either ascend to the expectations of your circle or you sink to their indifference. It has never been more difficult to build a proper environment because everyone is stuck in the digital junkyard, using it as their top reference point for life. That junkyard has destroyed standards of relationships, presence, and purpose.

What we are witnessing now is a new mirror emerging, a new environment where people live for four or more hours a day: intelligence. People are living inside intelligence and even using it as entertainment. But intelligence is malleable. It shapes around you based on your input. We can all use it to enhance cognition, to understand how our environment affects us.

For example, if you prompted intelligence with:

"I am doing more than just a health audit. I am trying to comprehend if my actions are affecting the way I interact with the world. How does watching TV for __  hours a day, playing video games for __  hours a day, and being on my phone for __ hours a day impact neuroplasticity and change my perception or environment on a daily basis?"

Input that with accurate data into any LLM, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. You will be shocked at the understanding you gain. It ages you faster, dulls your ability to think, and speeds up your brain in the wrong way, weakening your capacity for critical thought. Follow up the response with more questions to get a better understanding of how this affects your ability to think clearly.

When you follow these insights with deeper questions, you begin to see why the human race has been drifting off course the passed five years and why attention spans are shrinking, stress resilience is collapsing, and mental fatigue has become the new normal. Weak. Fragile.

But the human body was built to repair itself. It regenerates thousands of cells every single day. Just because we’ve drifted doesn’t mean we’re lost. We simply need to refocus to recalibrate how we build connections, how we learn, how we think. The ability to rebuild has always been inside us. We’ve just forgotten how to use it.

For the first time, we can architect a digital mirror that reflects not the noise of the world, but the clarity of our intent. Every search, every question, every digital act of curiosity sculpts the framework through which we see reality. AI, in this sense, becomes both a microscope and a mirror: it magnifies what we already are while reflecting what we choose to feed it. If your inputs are reactive, your environment will echo chaos; if they are deliberate, your environment will echo order. The responsibility now rests on us, to build an environment of intelligence that deepens cognition, strengthens awareness, and aligns perception with purpose.

Audit your digital habits. Observe your own thought patterns the same way an athlete studies film. Use intelligence as a reflective journal to question your motives, challenge your biases, and recalibrate your attention.

Building your environment isn't a one and done. It not something we do once. We grow, we adjust, we change. Building your environment is an ongoing ritual to how we want our perception to view with the world.

Design your digital environment with intention and your cognition, relationships, and purpose will follow.

-Nikhil Mohanty