Words of Wisdom

When I was just a tad younger, and full of the conviction that comes with a little knowledge, I regarded compromise with contempt. Morality, it seemed to my righteous 25-year-old self, was black and white. People were good, or they were crooks and sellouts. Ideas were right, or they were damned lies.

I've forgotten exactly when, but it occurred to me somewhere along the road of middle age that I need not be chronically outraged. Some of the people I scorned, I came to see, were just doing their best in difficult circumstances; life was gray, not black and white. To my chagrin, I saw that I, too, was sometimes driven by self-interest, not ideals; that I was capable of betrayals, pettiness, and mistakes of stunning stupidity. It was humbling to step down from the pedestal of purity--but, at the same time, wonderfully liberating. It's exhausting, as well as juvenile, to hold the world to standards that you can't meet yourself.

By William Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week