…Advice and Role Models That Harmed Me

They say you can judge a person’s character by the people they admire. It’s obvious: if they admire Einstein and Newton, they are a scientific type… If they admire Saint Onuphrius and Saint Anthony, they are a austere and religious type, and if they admire some fraud or crook, they are certainly a fraud themselves and not to be trusted.

The problem with me is that when I was young, I read "The Great Inventors of Mankind," which my father gave me as a gift, and I wanted to be like them.

When I realized that inventions are difficult and that I probably wouldn’t invent anything, I began to admire various heroes, warriors, and the like.

I didn’t do well there either, after realizing that acts of heroism are generally difficult and dangerous, and that, ultimately, in times of peace, you can't perform many heroic deeds anyway.

Then I started reading about pioneer doctors like Pasteur, Koch, Jenner, and others who made innovative discoveries and saved many lives.

These were basically the ones who ruined me, because I discovered—belatedly—that medicine, as it is practiced, has absolutely nothing to do with either Koch or Pasteur.

By the time I discovered this, however, I was already a student and had put an immense amount of effort into getting into medical school and memorizing countless pages of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, etc. As a result, that invested capital was not easy to throw away in order to start a new investment in knowledge.

The doctors I saw in the hospitals, the ones who were training us, unfortunately had nothing in common with Pasteur and Koch:

They were either pretentious, big-shot doctors with the attitude of ten Napoleons and huge pockets, or they were miserable wretches, ready to faint from exhaustion in the corridor between the ER and the ward.

The latter were by no means worse doctors than the pretentious ones—many of them might have even been better—but they lacked the "crema" (the froth).

The coffee was good, but it lacked that fancy kaimaki froth that makes shapes and little hearts, the kind that patients admire.

Later, I began to admire great writers… and I still admire them.

But let's be honest, along the way I realized that most of them were miserable, and perhaps that’s why they became great writers.

So now that I've grown old, things are starting to fall into place, and I am finally admiring the right people.

Now, I admire those who don’t muddy the waters.

I mean those who play nice with everyone and tell every fool exactly what their ears want to hear.

This tactic yields marvelous results in the sense that they get along great with a bunch of foolish bosses, subordinates, and colleagues, and they enjoy their peace of mind without giving a damn about anything.

The top achievers in this category are those who manage to get along well with their ex-wives.

I deeply admire these people because they manage not only to avoid animosity and hatred from their ex-wives, but to receive tenderness, affection, and plenty of cakes and handmade cookies on holidays.

And I also admire politicians who tell so many lies, and in such a successful way, that they can make black look white.

They manage, let's say, a company, an organization, or a ministry, and they perform such public relations magic tricks that the common folk swallow it whole and think they are grand ministers and statesmen.

When I think about these things, my admiration fades and a certain depression sets in:

I think of my father, who used to tell me that I would prosper in life if I was a good student and always told the truth.

And unfortunately, that was yet another piece of wrong advice that harmed me:

I became a good student and I became honest, but I did not prosper.

It’s simple… along the way, I realized that a bunch of empty vessels do just fine, and a bunch of liars manage to wine and dine at the expense of a crowd of honest, conscientious, and principled people.

The conclusion?

Fathers need to be careful about what advice they give to their children, before it is too late.

Platon Manias