Don’t Confuse Polish With Value

Why I Use Grammarly (And Why I Don’t Feel Guilty About It)

I was reading some blog posts I wrote almost 15 years ago. The ideas weren’t bad. The grammar? Let’s just say… there were a lot of red underlines.

Missing commas. Random capitalization. Words spelled three different ways. Spaces thrown in just for the heck of it! Sentences that wandered off and never came back.

It reminded me of something I’ve always known about myself. I’m not a detail-first person. I’m an idea-first person.

I love connecting dots, asking weird questions, finding patterns, and thinking about how the world might work differently tomorrow. I can happily spend hours chasing an idea. Proofreading? Not so much. For years I thought that was a weakness. Now I think it’s just an honest assessment of where I create the most value.

Grammarly Doesn’t Replace Me

People sometimes worry that tools like Grammarly make us lazy. I don’t see it that way.

Grammarly isn’t coming up with my ideas. It isn’t interviewing people. It isn’t noticing strange connections between things. It isn’t deciding what deserves to exist in the world. It’s catching the commas I would have missed anyway. That’s a trade I’m happy to make.

The Wrong Thing to Practice

When I was in elementary school, I hated handwriting practice. Every week we’d fill pages with perfectly formed letters.

Meanwhile, my parents had just bought a Macintosh computer. Even then, I remember thinking: “Why am I spending all this time making prettier letters when the future looks like keyboards?”

Turns out I wasn’t completely wrong. Today, very few people judge you by your penmanship.

They judge your ideas. Your ability to solve problems. Your ability to communicate. Your ability to move projects forward.

Handwriting became a niche skill. I wonder if perfect grammar is heading in the same direction.

The New Superpower

I’m not saying grammar doesn’t matter. It absolutely matters. Clear communication matters. Professional writing matters.

But there’s a difference between understanding good communication and manually fixing every misplaced comma yourself.

Today, software can do that in seconds. Just like calculators changed math. Just like GPS changed navigation. Just like spell check quietly became normal. The value has shifted.

So What Should We Practice?

If AI can improve grammar…If Grammarly can clean up our writing…If software can make an average email sound professional…Then what becomes valuable?

Ideas.

Curiosity.

Judgment.

Empathy.

Taste.

Creativity.

Seeing opportunities that other people miss.

Starting projects.

Finishing projects.

Working with people.

Those are much harder to automate.

The Future Needs Different People

For a long time, schools rewarded people who could memorize information and produce perfect work.

The future looks different. We need people who can imagine things that don’t exist yet. We need people who can build them. We need ideators. We need implementers. Because a good idea with bad grammar can be polished. But a bad idea with good grammar is useless.

A perfectly written document with no original thought is still empty.

I’ll happily let Grammarly fix my commas. That gives me more time to chase the next idea. And I think that’s a pretty good trade.