I am not what you might call a "meddler" by nature (unless we are talking about someone who fucking loves a certain album by a certain band). The evil uses to which Adam Smith's philosophy has been put of late notwithstanding, I would like to think of myself as laissez-faire in most aspects of life. Remember my brief romance with the Libertarian Party? Some of those tenents are still dear to me (though I disagree on capital punishment and health care and, to a certain extent, responding to economic crises, but this is not a political soliloquy).

Anyway, at work, I am unofficially known as the head of the legal S.W.A.T. team (at least in my areas of practice). Due to a fortunate (or unfortunate, if you have a more traditional sense of a sane existence) confluence of skills, personality traits and luck, I perform better under more adverse circumstances. For example, when a massive deal was teetering on going to hell in a bucket at Warp Factor 9, I was put on a plane and shipped to a satellite office for three days so I could go run shit (it is what I do). Deal got fixed. Deal got closed. Ooodles of money got made by all the lawyers. Yay. Next deal.

I could drone on with other examples, but this is not a (totally) self-aggrandizing post (for once). No, here I must invoke the words of Uncle Ben. "With great power comes great responsibility." I have the ability to fix things, and not just commercial transactions. I have rather good insight and intuition, especially on matters not directly involving me. I guess law school did a good job of cultivating the "counsellor" aspect of my professional pedagogy. However, as I have learned, sometimes not fixing things--even where that means letting them break, sometimes irrevocably--is the only correct course of action.

Enter the caterpillar paradox. Maybe a better title would be the butterfly paradox. But butterflies are beautiful, while caterpillars can be quite grotesque, so I tend to identify more with the wingless pupa. Anyway, a few years back, the firm had a work-life options consultant come in and give a presentation about childhood development and education. It looked interesting, and the free Jimmy John's was a plus. The presentation was pretty good from the outset. The speaker had kids of his own; he spoke with energy but not at a Billy Mays fever pitch; and the examples he used along the way were on point. Ever since my PSAT/SAT days, I have been a sucker/whore for good analogies.

The speaker was telling us a story about when his kids (12 and 10, I think) wanted to cook family dinner all on their own. Now, he knew this would go badly. The undertaking was just too adventureous for their age and experience. However, he let them try knowing full well they would likely fail. Smartly, he had the local pizza joint on standby, but he still let the kids go through the effort and struggle where failure was almost a certain inevitability. Now, why would he do this? Why allow your own flesh and blood to struggle and suffer?

As he pointed out, if you ever watch a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis phase, the process can be almost unbearable, especially in real time. The butterfly may take days or even a week to finally break out of the cocoon. Anyone watching this process would be more than tempted to gently slice open the cocoon and help the butterfly emerge much more quickly. However, by "helping" the butterfly in this manner, the only thing you would accomplish would be to kill the creature.

Being an insect, the butterfly has no internal skeleton. Rather, the butterfly is supported by its exoskeleton. However, the butterfly does not come with this feature as a stock floor-model option. The exoskeleton must be developed. I am sure that, by now, you have figured out HOW the exoskeleton is developed: by fighting and struggling and tearing and pushing and squeezing out of the cocoon. 

Some clients have an extremely difficult time with the concept of doing nothing as the most beneficial option. Sales reps are the worst. They just want to see action, regardless of how productive (or unproductive) such action may be ultimately. Some literally want to hear papers being shuffled on a desk. They think that if you are doing something--anything--you are de facto advancing the ball toward the goal. Bzzzt! Thank you for playing. You will get a complimetary at-home version of our game.

The same thing goes for parents. They are so concerned about things looking good that they would rather take over a project than permit their child to do a less-than-perfect job. Think the asshole dad who builds the pine wood derby cars for his kids. All the kids learn is that mom or dad will end up doing it for them if they wait long enough. And we wonder why the work ethic in this country (and others) has gone to shit.

So, sometimes, when it looks like I am doing nothing, I am actually doing more than ytou could possibly imagine. Don't worry; I do not bill for doing nothing. There's always some other deal on which something needs to be done, so I'll be okay. Just chill the fuck out and be cool like Fonzie, okay? And you parents out there, please let your kids fail early and often ("when the stakes are low", as a good friend said the other night when we were discussing the same). Don't do their homework for them. Don't build the science fair exhibit. Don't do all the work for that fucking merit badge. You do them a great disservice by "protecting" them from failure.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison