On One Hand, Live A Little; On the Other, Live A Little

Most advice is relative, not absolute

Photo courtesy of Gareth Ellis

I remember watching Better Call Saul, the Netflix show about a juvenile, scheming lawyer in New Mexico, and encountering a scene that struck me as odd.

At one point Saul, an up-and-coming attorney trying to build his own shenanigans-based law practice, suffers a series of tragedies and humiliations and decides to call it quits. He begins boxing up his office and tells his clients he’ll no longer be serving them.

His girlfriend, trying to be supportive, tells him not to give up. This is a temporary setback. You’ll be okay, just hang in there. This is what you were meant to do. This is who you are, Jimmy (Saul’s real name).

After all, it must have taken quite a series of blows to bring the ever-eager Saul down to the level of depression and defeat. It was out of character for him to be sullen or to even consider walking away from his dream. He’s the kind of guy who has an answer for everything (even if that answer is goofy or illegal).

However, I remember watching this scene and thinking, what if Saul was in character? What if Saul, after suffering this vicious series of humiliations and setbacks, was still his ever-optimistic self? What if, after reaching this point of total embarrassment, he still refused to own up to all the terrible things he had been putting himself and his clients through?

Well, then his girlfriend’s message might have been very different. She might have told him something like “Jimmy, it’s time for you to face the fact that you might not be cut out for this.”

How can it be that the nature of her advice could be so different if Saul himself was behaving differently? Isn’t there just one correct answer to the situation?

No. Of course not.

Most of the advice we give and receive in life is not a recipe for how to do a thing. Most advice is not prescription-writing; there is no axiom that fits every situation. For instance a great piece of advice is “be bold; take risks.” That’s good advice for most situations in life, most people in life. But if you’re in the Intensive Care Unit due to your risk-taking, people are probably not going to be telling you that. They’ll more likely tell you that you need to take fewer.

Conversely, “relax and take things slow” is also great advice. But not for a person who hasn’t left the house in 12 months. That person needs to get the hell up and do something.

Most advice is just a way of taming our excesses. It’s about how to stop fucking up.

And that’s most of the battle with anything in life. Just ask any successful long-term investor: the best way to get rich is by trying like hell not to do all the things that keep average people poor. 99% of the game is just not doing anything that will kill you. Don’t go all-in on penny stocks. Don’t invest in companies you know to be fraudulent. But also… don’t sit on the sidelines and watch the entire bull market happen without you.

Don’t be stupid in one way, but don’t be stupid in the opposite way either.

If you can stop fucking up, you might actually get somewhere. It doesn’t matter if you, like Saul, are moving and shaking and doing interesting things; if you’re still committing the most cardinal errors, you’ll always be multiplying by zero.

With Saul, his girlfriend just wanted him to slow down and make a good decision. No matter which direction he happened to be leaning too far into — quiet despair, or conceited optimism — her advice boiled down to “please slow down and be more thoughtful.” She wanted him to recognize the one basic truth of his situation: you can do this, Jimmy. But only if you stop fucking up.

In the back pocket of our jeans, at all times, is the “stop fucking up in this way” advice; in the other back pocket of those same jeans, the “stop fucking up in the exact opposite way” advice. Ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, to any friend or family member who’s just being… excessive.

The reason Elon Musk is so controversial isn’t because of his ideas or his money; it’s because his personality is excessive. If he could get us to Mars and invent electric cars without being a total circus clown, people would pick on him less. People just want him to be a billionaire, have big ambitions, and act like an adult all at the same time.

Which may or may not be a tall order, depending entirely on whom you ask.

Imagine you’re going through a rough patch with your significant other. Your relationship is falling apart. You’re not sure she’s into you anymore. You can’t seem to get her to acknowledge your effort or the things you’ve been trying in the relationship. You haven’t been communicating as much recently.

Now suppose you go ask your grandfather what you should do. Your grandfather might say “let go. If you love her, let her go. If she still wants you, the problem was just that you were clinging too tightly and overthinking it.”

Or your grandfather might say “man up and tell her the entire truth. Don’t waste any more time wondering. Sit down with her, pour your heart out, tell her you adore her more than life itself, and that all you want is for her to be as all-in as you are.”

Your grandfather isn’t wrong in either one of these situations. What he says might depend on where exactly he thinks you are on the spectrum of “trying too hard” versus “not trying hard enough.” It might depend on how you present your case: he might sense a conviction in your voice one way or the other about what you really want — a conviction you didn’t even know you had. What he says might even depend on what kind of mood he’s in.

And his advice might not even work. It’s also possible that the relationship would have been saved by doing the opposite of what he says.

And still, either way, he’s probably not wrong. He can’t keep you from making mistakes; he can only point out what the most obvious mistakes are, and try to keep you from those. Because they’re obvious. Don’t be a pussy, but don’t expect a bad thing to turn good either.

Hard to say which one was the “right” advice. Because both are. His most likely response is the one that counters your biggest excess.

You could ask a friend, do you think I'm drinking too much? If he's sober, he might say, “yeah man you might want to take your weekly routine a little more seriously. You're missing out on tons of productive hours.” But if that same friend has a couple of beers in his own stomach, he might say, “fuck it brother, stop taking yourself so seriously.”

On one hand, live a little. On the other hand, live a little.

I find it interesting how the basis of Eastern and Western philosophies are, in some sense, diametrically opposed. The lesson of Western philosophy is to move; the lesson of Eastern philosophy is to sit still.

Western philosophy teaches us to engage in the Socratic dialectic; to innovate; to reason our way to something new; to create; to shake things up a bit. To make progress. Western philosophy teaches us that our war with reality is won or lost by innovation and new ideas.

Eastern philosophy teaches us to get back to basics and stop trying so hard all the time. Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching is a book that says “sit still, feel the wind and the grass, and just be.” Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is a book that says “sit there and don’t do anything stupid, and then strike when the moment presents itself.” Our war with reality is won or lost by just not fucking anything up.

“Don’t just sit there, do something” versus “don’t just do something, sit there.”

Both schools make perfect sense. What you need to hear depends on what your goals are, and how far you currently are from those goals. What you need to hear depends on what you’re currently forgetting.

And the funny thing is, you’ll never remember it all at once. This is why we need other people to help shape us and keep us in line. You will be excessive in life; you can bet a crisp twenty on that. You can’t be perfectly Eastern and Western all of the time. Besides, sometimes you should be one or the other. Sometimes if you want to accomplish interesting things, you have to be a little excessive anyway.

Which means that even the advice “don’t be excessive” is excessive.

And we all know that person — usually a grandmother or grandfather — who just stubbornly refuses to acknowledge inconvenient things. No, I'm not sick. I'll be fine. No, I'm not giving up on this little plant in my garden. No, no, no. Everything will turn out okay. Because I believe it will.

And some of the time, they're wrong. But some of the time, they're right. Does that make it wrong to call out their stubbornness? Does that make it wrong that we want to correct their excesses? It's hard to say. You can often only tell in hindsight.

Life is not simple enough to be cooked with a formula. There’s always an exception and there are always ways in which you can take a good thing too far. Like optimism, or boldness, or even honesty. If life was simple, we’d all be good at it.

Drink some water and fuck things up and also don’t fuck things up.

JR

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” - Winston Churchill

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Thanks to Brent Donnelly for editing a draft of this.