John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Live Fast, Die Young, Don’t Take Parking Advice

“Live Fast. Die Young. Don’t take helpful parking advice.”
(Rebel without a cause….Just rebelling for rebellion’s sake.)

Ah, c’mon. Sure you do. Most of us have a deep down core spark of defiance in us that makes no sense. It’s part of what makes us cherish independence as Americans. We are a nation of immigrants whose ancestors were willing to sail across oceans to to come to America to be free and we take our freedoms seriously.

We are a nation of independent minded risk takers and entrepreneurs who want to be allowed to do our own thing and subscribe to Ben Franklin’s motto, “Don’t tread on me.”

But sometimes can take them too seriously—and even turn into a silly defiance that is taken to an absurd and pointless extreme. And that is not a helpful or enviable trait to have.

What does that look like? I’m afraid I may have inadvertently found out myself yesterday while joking with a friend. Because joking, you know, isn’t always 100% joking. It’s usually at least 10% true, which is what makes the absurd distortion funny. There is a grain of truth to it.

And sometimes it’s 15% true. Or even 50%.

Yesterday I was running late to meet a friend who was working with a new firm and he wanted me to meet with the firm and see if there were any opportunities to work together on something in the future.

To help me not waste more time since I was having trouble finding the location, I got a call when I was two minutes away helpfully explaining to me to “Park in the back. We are in the back so don’t park in the front.”

I arrived and, as you can imagine where this is going, I was seized with the same urge in me that causes me to “walk on the grass” and “touch wet paint” when I see signs telling me not to. Part curiosity, I tell myself, but certainly part rebel. And so I parked in the front. I tried going in several doors but none—surprise, surprise!—led to my friend’s firm. I called him and asked again for directions to the office explaining in golf language, “I’m on the green but don’t want to four putt.”

I walked all the way around the building, found the office and had a nice meeting. When I left my friend walked me to my car….And I kept walking and walked through the grass and mud as we had to walk around the hill on the side of the building to get back to my car which I parked in the “front” instead of the back as I was helpfully advised.

My friend started laughing and asked, “Did you really still park in the front? Even after I told you it was a pain to walk up here to the backside of the building?” It was a rhetorical question but I took the bait and thought I would have some fun trying to explain my inexplicable decision.

I went on a faux rant saying, “Look man, yeah, you told me where to park. But I’m 49 years old. Don’t you think I know how to park at my age? What are trying to say to me by talking to me that way? Do you think I’m an idiot or something? And, yeah, I interpreted the advice as you trying to control me. I don’t like being held down like that and controlled. I was sending a message by parking in the front against your advice. C’mon man, I’m not your monkey. I don’t roll that way. I park on my terms where I want to park for my own reasons and you need to get OK with that. Don’t be cramping my style by trying to micromanage everything about my life, like where I park.”

We were both laughing at the absurd childish rant I was pretending to have…and said goodbye. And as I drove off, I realized that about 50% of what I said (as a joke)—deep, deep down in my murky inchoate psyche—was had a trace (or more than a trace) of truth to it. Wow! And completely ridiculous. But there it is. And something I need to consciously battle against in areas of my life that are more consequential than deciding where to park.

So, my commitment to myself. Next time someone offers me helpful parking instructions, I am going to take them up on it. Maybe not ever detail but as a general matter if I am told to park in the back, I will at least park in the back or on the side of the road and not in the front. And tell myself that it doesn’t make me a “sell out….to ‘the man'” if I do that.

It will just make me 5 minutes earlier and keep me from getting mud on my shoes.