Compounded Miscalculations Can Result in Huge Errors

The last time I visited New York, I met up with two of my friends from Paris whom I hadn't seen in ages. We went to a very smart, quiet bar somewhere in the West Village. It might as well have been a bar in Paris. The lights were almost completely off, creating an air of intimacy. Each small round table could seat four people at most and in the middle was a tiny flickering candle that accentuated the facial contortions of whoever happened to be leaning across the table to make a point. As my friends and I fell deeper into conversation, we all three began invading the candlelight, sometimes all at the same time. I realized how good it was to see them again.


As the cigarette butts kept piling up in the ashtray and our black cocktail straws lay strewn across the table by the dozens, the conversation became more personal. One of my friends had just been dumped by his girlfriend. He had a thing for Eastern European beauties and she definitely fit the bill. The break up had really shaken him up and made him reevaluate everything in his life. He was a smart, successful young man with a blazing bright future. He had been to all the right schools, his parents were both incredibly successful; he was well read, well traveled, well spoken, had a great sense of humor and was always up for an adventure. But she had left him for a guy with his own home alarm installation business. She said that he worked too hard, that while he was traveling four days a week to Tennessee for his consulting job she had started seeing this other guy. This other guy had time for her, she had told him. He may not be as smart, but she respected him for having his own business and for being there when she needed him.

"What did I do it all for?" my friend asked. "When I was a kid, deciding what to do in my life, I thought to myself that if I went to a good school, got a good job, made good money and had some adventures along the way, I would be the perfect guy for any girl. I thought I could be with the girl I want and make her totally happy because she couldn't find anyone better. Now, I work 70 hours a week, I spend half my time in Tennessee, I spend all the money I make on my tiny apartment and drinks at bars, and my girlfriend left me for some nobody, some guy without even a college degree who installs alarms. Where did I fuck up so bad? If I had known this was all pointless ten years ago, I would have just dropped out and done all the things I wanted to do, instead of the things I thought I was supposed to do."

The emotions really resonated with me. I remembered the times in my 10th grade English class that I would stare at that gorgeous girl in the back corner who always wore low cut tank tops and a push up bra. We were constantly writing in-class essays and, when I ran low on motivation and my hand would start to get numb from writing so quickly, I would look up and just stare at her beauty. "If I do well on this essay, I can get a good grade in this class, and if I do well in this class, I can do well this semester, and if that happens, then I can do well this year. And if I keep doing well in high school, I can go to a good college, and eventually I can be successful. And when I'm successful, I can be with a girl like her." The logic seemed as infallible then as it seems absurd now.

In reflecting back on all this, and in thinking of my friend's predicament, I thought of the following parable:

A young boy once yearned for love and happiness as a poor man yearns for wealth. So he looked around to see what women liked and thought, women like guys in really nice clothes, a really well dressed guy. The clothes are a metaphor for accomplishments and titles and prestige, things with which people adorn themselves throughout life. So the boy set about acquiring money and pieces of clothing. And he bought some beautiful things at very dear prices.

And then one day he put it all on and strolled down the street, and he had a bounce in his step and a grin on his chin. And he looked at all the women and thought, "Surely they'll love me now! Behold how well clothed I am!" But to his dismay and disbelief, he was no more loved than when he was 10. And he couldn't see why! Men in far less refined garments were walking with women who seemed to really enjoy their company. Why was he not happy now, draped in the clothing of his accomplishments?

And then he saw a freshly cleaned window reflecting the light off itself. He caught his image in it, and he understood. The clothing didn't fit the man. Though draped in fine cloth, he looked like a beggar still. Because all this time, he had not done anything to grow himself into the clothing, into his accomplishments, to better himself from the inside.

Being superficial himself, he had judged the world to be the same. But the world was far more perceptive than he and quickly saw the fraud beneath the finely woven threads, saw the poor and hungry spirit of a little boy draped in the garb of a successful man, saw how his clothes hung awkwardly about his limbs, how ill they fit and suited his demeanor. And seeing himself thusly in the reflective glass, the man bowed his head and strolled on idly, meandering about the streets more lost than when he was a child.

And although I comforted my friend that night and told him that she just wasn't the one, that she didn't appreciate him, that she wasn't good enough for him, I couldn't help but wonder if he was right, if somewhere along the way we had just gotten it all wrong.