Every Mantra has a Counter-Mantra
Including this one
tl;dr Next time you read, see, hear, give, get, ideate or invent a mantra, just remember that “every mantra has a counter-mantra, including this one.”
Tweet Sized Advice
For the better part of a decade now, I feel like at least once a week I’m either on the giving or receiving end of “tweet-sized advice” that’s intended to solve large, complex problems.
In my late teens and early 20s, when hearing these “life lessons” for the first time, it felt like my mind was being broadened with every conversation. Nowadays, having heard them many times, meditating on them, reflecting on them, acting on them, learning from them, etc., my usual reaction is: “easier said than done.”
How many times have you heard people say to “keep it simple, stupid (KISS)”? And who would argue with the fact that “patience is a virtue,” or that “chance favors the prepared mind.”
I love to simplify things, but don’t forget that “it's supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.” And while we’re being patient and preparing, just don’t forget that “innovation thrives on urgency” because “fortune favors the bold.”
If you’re at least a little triggered by the statements above, it worked.
The overly-generic yet simultaneously nuanced comparison between these mantras is just the tip of the iceberg. Each one is “appropriate” at a certain time and place but cannot be delivered without context.
The Startup Seesaw
A large part of my life for a little over a decade now has been studying products and startups, heavily biased by an engineering lens. Once you’ve heard a few variations of all the “general-purpose advice”, it begins to feel like a seesaw.
As we’re continuing to recalibrate post the Zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) era, I still remember Jason Calacanis yelling things like “CASH IS KING” as well as “GROWTH AT ALL COSTS” just a few months apart.¹
How many times have you heard someone call out the importance of making “data driven decisions” in meetings, but if that doesn’t work, then just “trust your gut.”
It’s critical to be “customer obsessed” because “the customer is always right”, but then someone will come along and quote Steve Jobs saying that: “Our job is to figure out what [the customers are] going to want before they do.”
Everyone talks about the importance “work-life balance”, but do we “work hard, play hard”, or do we treat it "as a marathon, not a sprint." Why not marathon-length sprints or sprint-length marathons?
As a continually recovering perfectionist, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve told myself to “not let perfect be the enemy of good”, only to listen to a Founder’s Podcast episode later that day discussing how Disney or Apple would not be where they are today were it not for Steve Jobs' or Walt Disney’s attention to detail.
A very admirable approach to problem solving is “thinking from first principles”, but when that doesn’t work, you just need to “take a leap of faith.”
A recent example from
’s podcast with Shreyas Doshi is a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Plans are useless, but planning is everything." Is this an oxymoron because it captures the mantra and counter-mantra all in one, or is it implying that everything is useless?²I’ll pause here because this section can get quite long…
I could make the argument and explain how all of the above are actually complementary, but again, the context in which they’re delivered and the nuance of how they’re delivered is key.
Tools vs Solutions
As someone who arguably consumes a bit too much content (podcasts, newsletters, books, etc.), I come across these mantras all the time. The stories and experiences behind the people mentioning them remain powerful, but void of those stories, they have started losing their meaning.
My new approach is to treat them as tools more so than anything else: suggestions, advice, solutions, ideas, concepts, experiences, etc.
In the same way that there is no universal wrench that can be used for everything, there is no universal mantra that can be applied at all points in time. It’s very circumstantial, time-sensitive and likely biased by recent events or experiences in one’s life. Personally, I’ve found that the exact same person saying the exact same thing had profoundly different effects on how I internalized it at different points in my life.
As we grow older, more mature and experienced, the number of tools we have in our shed grows. When life throws something at us, we have a wider selection of tools to deal with it. We become less reliant on rules and instructions, but offload more to our gut and intuition. As Picasso said: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
For every Mantra, there is an equal and opposite Counter-Mantra
As much as you may have enjoyed the toolshed analogy, there’s one more that I hope will appeal to any of the 🤓s reading this. It’s about realizing that you’ll never find the perfect tool for the job.
One of the nice things about Newtonian Mechanics over Quantum Physics is how logical³, deterministic and clear things are, so I’ll refer back to Newton's Third Law, stating that: “for every action, there is an equal an opposite reaction”. ⁴
Though he was primarily referring to forces on physical bodies in space, I’d argue the same principle extends to conceptual thoughts and ideas: for every Mantra, there is an equal and opposite Counter-Mantra.
There will always be stressors coming from all directions. One will always sway too much to the left or right at different points in time. Perfect balance will never be found. True calm is momentary.
Every mantra on one side will find an equal and opposite counter-mantra on the other side. The tools we have around not about finding balance but maintaining it. The more we have, the easier it’ll be.
Concluding Thoughts
Next time you read, see, hear, give, get, ideate or invent a mantra, just remember that “every mantra has a counter-mantra, including this one.”
Add the tool to your toolshed and use it at the “right” time, for yourself, taking all external and internal factors into consideration. This last part is “easier said than done”, so it’s a classic “do as I say, not as I do” sort of situation.
Lastly, take everything I said here with a grain of 🧂. I’m just a dude in his early 30s who makes 🍆 jokes with his friends who think they have life figured out.
Appendix
[1] I didn’t bother looking up direct sources to these, so I’m paraphrasing. If Jaycal somehow ends up reading this, challenging it, and calls me out, I’ll take that as a win.
[2] Jokes aside, if your job involves planning and impacts other people’s work, this statement is extremely powerful. I’d even argue that it extends and is equally as important to planning your own life.
[3] I have a running joke with one of my friends that any time we both come to a logical conclusion at the end of a deep discussion, both of us say “Oh No”. Oh No…
[4] I was curious what the actual official wording of the law was so I found it in the The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy:
“To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.”
- Issac Newton
nicely put!
reminds me of https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-317-yes-or