In second grade I had just moved to a new school.  I was a competent athlete and being competent with playground sports was how I earned respect and learned to fit in.  4 square was a the game that we played at recess and  I would daydream about what rules I would choose when I got in the 4th square.  When I finally made it into the 4th square, the rule I chose was “poison line” where if you hit the ball into a line, you were out.

10 seconds into the game, I hit the line.  My first time making policy was brief and insignificant but the lesson endured.  Our culture is full of aphorisms warning you to be careful what you ask for.  “What goes around comes around”, “Live by the sword, die by the sword”, “You reap what you sow”.  For me its don’t use “poison line” as your first rule. My favorite formulation is from yhe epitaph of T.S. Elliot’s “The Wasteland.

Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumīs ego ipse oculīs meīs vīdī in ampullā pendere, et cum illī puerī dīcerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondēbat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.

For I indeed once saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in her jar, and when the boys asked her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she answered ‘I want to die’.

What happened to Sibyl?  She made the mistake of getting exactly what she asked for.  In the traditional myth, she made the mistake of wishing for eternal life without wishing for eternal youth.  Because of that she was fated to age indefinitely, and when she was asked what she really wanted she wanted death.

Don’t ask for a job you don’t want

At one job I had the director would always ask me “What do you need from me?” over and over.  I thought it was weird (I was a pretty insignificant project manager), and I asked a mentor about it.  He told me it was a trick and not to fall for it.  He was going to give me exactly what I asked for, which the catch that I had to deliver.  If I wasn’t able to, I was going to get fired for cause with the reason “we gave him everything he asked for and he still couldn’t deliver”.

My mentor was right but it was the director who couldn’t deliver.  A few months after I moved into another role, he was out.  Sometime people think I am not aggressive enough or too timid.  The fact is, I choose to be very discerning about what I ask for and what I want.  What lesson has stuck with me most from second grade to college and on to life?  It is: don’t ask for a promotion you don’t want, don’t date someone you don’t want to marry and don’t use “poison line” as your first rule at recess.

Epilogue – Say no to drugs

On a similar theme, but not exactly related is my approach to hallucinogenic drugs. Someone told me in high school that it was a bad idea to do ‘shrooms unless I was 100% sure about it.  They said if I had any doubts going into it it was going to be a bad trip.  It was really good advice, since I had (and still have some doubts).  I’ve never tripped, and I’ve never had a bad one.