Good is just the opposite of bad

Last night, Mary and I were reminiscing about "go-getters," or more accurately, people we'd known in the past who weren't go-getters. By this I mean people who seemed to be waiting for good things to happen to them, rather than picking goals and working to achieve them.

Before descending too far into self-congratulation, I made a mental list of what I considered to be the important good decisions in my life. I was surprised when I realized that most of them weren't based on positive goals. They were simply decisions to escape bad situations.

To illustrate, here's a summary of my professional career since school:

"In spite of three invigorating years as a litigator at a prestigious Los Angeles entertainment law firm, I made the difficult decision to move to Silicon Valley and pursue a career in software engineering. Following a series of successful startups, in 2003 I took a position at Google, where I remain happily today."

Meanwhile, here's the same summary from a different perspective:

"Law made me miserable, so I quit. I left Los Angeles to escape an unhealthy personal relationship. I quit my job after the dot-com crash and a power struggle left marginal talent in charge of my company. I abandoned my own startup for reasons I still don't understand today."

The former sounds like the resume of a relentlessly driven go-getter. The latter is a litany of complaints, but more important, it's much closer to the truth.

Now, I'm old enough to know that I'm too young to be wise. But wisdom isn't suddenly conferred on your fiftieth birthday, either; it arrives slowly over time. It's ever so slightly possible there's some wisdom in what I'm about to say.

You might not be able to recognize good. You might never be sure you're about to make a good decision. But don't let that stop you from making the best decision you can, right now, to try to improve your life.

Why is this good advice? Why isn't this reckless?

Because even if you might not be able to recognize good, you can certainly recognize bad. To be precise, you can recognize when things are bad right now. And if you can recognize bad, then you can avoid it. You can recognize when it's time to roll the dice again and give yourself another chance. It won't always work; in fact, sometimes you'll jump from the frying pan into the fire. But nobody will ever fault you for constantly, relentlessly trying to avoid bad.