Day 1 mentality
I recently watched Lex Fridman’s interview with Jeff Bezos 1and recommend it to anyone interested in foundational business philosophy. In it, they discuss a core Amazon principle called “Day 1.” You can read more about it here: [Day 1 Amazon link].
During the podcast, they reference Jeff’s annual letters to shareholders, where this Day 1 principle appears in both the first and last letters. Reading these letters helped me name something I’d been thinking about for a while. As Jeff describes Day 1:
Every day you are deciding what you’re going to do and you are not trapped by what you were or who you were or any self-consistency. Self-consistency even can be a trap. And so day one thinking is we start fresh every day and we get to make new decisions every day about invention, about customers, about how we’re going to operate.
I want to take this principle further. For me, Day 1 extends beyond daily renewal—it operates on an infinitesimal scale within each present moment. For the conceptual foundation of this view, I recommend my post on infinitesimal life. 2
In every moment, we are neither bound by our past nor constrained by our future. Each action begins on a white canvas. Nothing changes this—except our attachment to identity. We construct representations of ourselves from these identities, falling into the trap of thinking: “Since I became someone, I must continue being that person.”
The identity paradox
Looking inward, I find not one self but many—a collection of identities. Each activity, action, or habit generates stories and perspectives that form the broader sense of “I.” When I run, I embody the runner. This act of creating identity gives me power: I can claim “I am a runner” or “I love to run.”
But this carries problems. We imagine ourselves as static—a fixed identity defined by body, beliefs, and values, standing on solid ground, unchanging. In reality, the self is fluid, constantly transforming. There is no consistent “me” each time I speak it. This creates resistance to our present experience; the constant change contradicts our fixed self-image and generates suffering.
This suffering emerges from the gap between our mental model and reality. By resisting life’s flow, we try controlling the uncontrollable, and attachment to our thoughts forms. We fall into mental traps and habits inherited from past versions of ourselves.
A little story
In my childhood, I believed I was reactive and angry, creating an identity reinforced through a cycle of reactive behavior, self-criticism, and confirmation bias. During adolescence, I began practicing meditation and spirituality, observing these patterns and applying techniques to reverse them.
The shift became real when university friends described me as peaceful and non-reactive. This external reflection dissolved my old identity and replaced it with a positive one. I realized identity isn’t fixed—by correcting my habits, I could transform myself in alignment with my will.
Conclusion
By not being bound by past selves, by not being constrained by future outcomes, we are free to do whatever we want and to become whatever we want to be. The only limits reside inside our heads.
Once you can abstract to your thoughts and mental patterns, you could observe that the thing that is called “you” is constantly changing, it{s impermanent. The real transformation begins when we choose to not embody any persona, there we start to feel joy and freedom again.
This is the true transformation.