I don’t think that my actions changed in a way that prompted this; my position did. And what this meant was that things I’d once been privy to became increasingly unavailable to me. Gradually, snarky behavior, grousing, and rudeness disappeared from view - from my view, anyway. I rarely saw bad behavior because people wouldn’t exhibit it in front of me. I was out of a certain loop, and it was essential that I never lose sight of that fact. If I wasn’t careful to be vigilant and self-aware, I might well draw the wrong conclusions.

Think about this: we have inspirational stories—both real and imaginary—of people who went from extreme poverty to mega wealth, from alarming sickness to obsessive health freaks, and from ignorance to wisdom. However, we don’t even bother making up stories of bosses who went from terrible to amazing. If we did, they would probably be classified as science fiction. In contrast, and as earlier chapters have demonstrated, there is no shortage of real-life examples for leaders who were great until they deteriorated. The pathway from good to bad seems much easier than the one going from bad to good.

Here, as in so many situations, the required actions were not mysterious. The impediment was the hope that the pain of those actions could, somehow, be avoided. Indeed, we always hope that a brilliant insight or very clever design will allow us to accomplish several apparently conflicting objectives with a single stroke, and occasionally we are vouchsafed this kind of deliverance.

I also take solace from Franklin’s life, in learning that he endured an extended trough in his 50s and 60s (relative to the rest of his life). If Benjamin Franklin can make mistakes and misjudgments, then I don’t feel so bad about my own mistakes and misjudgments. If Benjamin Franklin can spend years on efforts that ultimately ended in failure, then I don’t feel so bad about my own efforts on projects that ended up being dead ends or cul-de-sacs. If Benjamin Franklin can feel dispirited and in a fog funk, then I don’t feel so bad about my own existential fog funks. If Benjamin Franklin can enter his 60s with half of the most significant pages of his life yet to be written, then I feel quite good about the possibilities for the late decades of life.

In writing about Benjamin Franklin and casting back through all the remarkable people in this investigation, I’m struck by the imperfections in their lives. The stories led me to a gigantic, calming exhale about my own life imperfections, letting go the anchoring weight of past mistakes and missed opportunities. I take from studying them a reminder that I wrote for myself and that I return to whenever I find myself being pulled around backward in the saddle by past regrets: You cannot straighten out the road behind you.

It was not the time for Roland to start playing up. But James was realising that this was the nature of adult life. There were no breakthroughs into clear open space. Every time you were just getting into your stride, something tripped you. It was like trying to construct a functioning car out of pasta shapes: every time you, with supreme care and delicacy, got this improbable object moving forward, something snapped again.