Taking the Low Road to Success

By Tobin Barnes
It’s been a few weeks now since my last column. During that time, I felt like writing nothing, and at that I was wildly successful.
   
Couldn’t have done better.
   
It’s amazing how much more success you can attain when you set your sights low. You can have “I did it!” moments all over the place. For example, I tried to write nothing, and yeah, “I did it!”

Always setting your sights high is a bunch of bunk.
   
Hitch your wagon to a star? Way oversold by Emerson’s “little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Too often that unedited attitude breeds discontentment and self-contempt.
   
Rather than “I did it!” moments, you get “Great! I failed again” crashes.
   
Who needs it? I much prefer success.
   
So set your sights low once in a while. With low sights you get daily--heck, hourly--fulfillment and fist bumps all around. WooHoo!
   
That’s right. We are not worthy, Homer Simpson.
   
More people should take up your attitude. Particularly at certain times. The world would be better off.
   
I can think of a lot of overachievers who went two or three rungs too far. They kept achieving until they got to a position where all they could do was fail.
   
There’s a name for that syndrome. It’s called the Peter Principle, formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in a 1968 bestseller. The book was meant to be a humorous takeoff on corporate culture, but most can see the validity of its premise.
   
The Peter Principle says that people tend to rise to the level of their incompetence.
  
We’ve all seen it. A person was great at this, that, or the other thing, but they got promoted one time too many, and then they weren’t worth a hoot. 
   
Things would have been fine if they’d stopped rising at some point in their careers. But they kept on going up the ladder--setting their sights higher--until they got to a position where they weren’t good anymore. Now they make a mess of nearly everything they do.
   
It’d be best if they were demoted back down to where they were comfortable again. But that’s seen as failure when actually it could be success.
   
The Peter Principle can be seen at work in management and politics all the time. I’ll let you fill in the names.
   
Those people should have set their sights lower. Achieved success and happiness at more modest levels. Instead, they’re miserable and we’re miserable. Couldn’t leave well enough alone.
   
That’s not going to be me. When my sights get up a little high, I’ll take them down a notch or two. I’m staying competent and content.
   
As you know, my bag is writing ironic takes on the stupid things going on in this world. Oftentimes, I’m my own best material. But sometimes I come up blank. Thinking up stupid stuff to write about every week is tougher than you’d think. When my stupid tank begins to run on empty, I know I need to let it fill up again. I purposely lower my sights.
   
Like just recently. For a while there, I couldn’t think of anything dumb to write a column about, so I knew I needed a break. And I broke well. A darned-near perfect ten. Hit that one out of the ball park. Success.
   
Now my mind’s clear. I can write about stupid things again.
   
Every which way I turn, I can recognize the tell-tale signs of overachievers who have risen to incompetence. All I need to do is report it.
   
Yeah, I feel refreshed, but I can’t say I feel good about it.
   

All that rampant incompetence and its resulting stupidity has the world headed for hell in a hand basket. Look around. It’s downright scary out there, folks. We could be heading for a tipping point. The Peter Principle warned us, and we didn’t listen.
   
But then, if you’re in the stupidity business, like me, it’s not all bad.
   
The world’s beating a path to my door.