Leave three things unsaid.
Every day.
I read that somewhere.
It was a pro tip on how not to piss off your spouse.
Have you ever tried it?
It works.
Quite well, actually.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
I can be a know-it-all jackass.
And when a topic arises with my wife about which I know something—possibly everything, in my mind—I can’t help myself.
Do you know much sugar is in that granola bar? I’ll ask her.
She’ll be standing in the kitchen, minding her own business.
It’s like you’re having a Snickers for breakfast, I’ll continue.
Look it up.
It’s true.
Here, I’ll expect her to drop the granola bar like a murder weapon and slowly back away from it with a look of mild horror on her face.
That’s what I’ll expect.
But what will actually happen is that her countenance will change from pleasant to annoyed, and she’ll respond with a curt, sarcastic, “Thanks.”
And then she’ll walk out of the kitchen.
Still eating the granola bar.
Some version of this scene has played out countless times through the years.
I know exactly how she’ll respond to such comments.
It’s never good.
And, frankly, I can’t blame her.
If someone pulled that shit with me, I’d come right back at him, knife-handing like a maniac.
I wouldn’t have the composure to simply walk away.
So why do I continue to do it?
Why do I have to be the know-it-all?
Why can’t I leave such things unsaid?
I must have some deeply rooted insecurity.
Because that’s what it usually comes down to.
We all crave validation.
Even the highly accomplished.
That, or you have to be a total narcissist.
Or maybe you’re both insecure and a narcissist.
Like some of the clowns I sat in class with last week.
I was at the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island.
The Navy had decided to send me to its Senior Leader Legal Course.
Among other things pertaining to military justice, the course focuses heavily on ethics.
Which makes sense in the wake of the Fat Leonard scandal.
You may have heard about it.
“Fat” Leonard Francis was the CEO of Glenn Defense Marine Asia.
His company provided services to ships in various ports throughout Asia.
Francis orchestrated a years-long scheme in which he corrupted numerous officers in the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet to steer business to his company.
He was highly successful.
It ultimately got him arrested, and numerous collaborating officers were made to face criminal charges.
It ended careers.
And it left a moral stain on the Navy that endures to present day.
The Commanding Officer of the Justice School, a Navy Captain and career JAG officer, had worked on both sides of the scandal in previous roles.
He’d been both a prosecutor and defense counsel.
And so he personally taught our ethics class, drawing heavily from his experience.
It was Inside Baseball at its best, with useful, interesting details and anecdotes that had never made the news.
The captain was ideally suited to lead the discussion.
But that didn’t stop certain others in the class from interrupting him.
Like, constantly.
It came in two forms:
The So There I Was and the Totally Obscure, Run-On Hypothetical.
The former describes a situation in which a person has had some practical experience with a concept the instructor is describing.
And that person is wholly convinced the class needs to hear about it.
“So, let me tell you what this looks like out on the deckplates,” this one guy started. “I had this situation on the ship where . . .”
The guy was sitting in the second row from the front.
Rather than direct his comment to the instructor, he had instead turned around to address it to the rest of us.
He was totally hijacking the class.
Now, in fairness, this person was not without qualifications.
He’d been the commanding officer of a destroyer.
In my mind, there is no more awesome responsibility in this business than command at sea.
You’re in charge of 400 or so twenty-somethings who are highly skilled and eager to do a good job.
But many of those twenty-somethings totally suck at adulting and do unfathomably stupid things.
That’s one aspect of the job.
Another one is that, as the commanding officer, you’re responsible for enough weaponry and firepower to start a world war.
And the Navy doesn’t give such responsibility to just anyone.
So, yes, I have the utmost respect for those who command at sea.
Including this guy who could not, for the life of him, keep his goddamn mouth shut.
But I have my limits.
This former commanding officer didn’t interject just once.
Or twice.
Every other comment from the instructor elicited some kind of extended response from him.
It was so, so tiresome.
The same was true of the Obscure, Run-On Hypothetical guy.
We had a couple of those in the class.
One of them was particularly annoying.
His interruptions always began with, “So, what if . . .”
In one lesson, we discussed the legalities of receiving gifts, either personally or on behalf of the Navy.
There are numerous rules surrounding such occasions.
But there are also exceptions to those rules, further muddying the waters.
So, as became a recurring theme in the course, the advice from the instructors was to simply ask a JAG for guidance.
That wasn’t good enough for this one dude.
He insisted on taking the entire class down this ridiculous rabbit hole.
“So, what if,” he began.
“What if I’m on a ship and I pull into Sasebo and the local mayor wants to give me some samurai sword as a gift and it’s during this public ceremony and I don’t want to embarrass him or make the Navy look bad by not accepting it, and he gives me the sword and I see that it has my name engraved on the blade, which makes it personal, and I have no idea how much the sword is worth, and there’s my name on it, and I think I saw one on eBay once that was, like, five hundred bucks, but I have no idea how much this one’s worth, and there’s the mayor standing there, all smiling, and it’s a guy I’d actually met before when I was on a different ship, and maybe we’re not exactly friends, but I do know him, and . . .”
Blah, blah, blah.
Everyone’s eyes just glazed over.
And the instructor, trying to be polite, started unpacking this dude’s hypothetical, making the experience all the more painful for the rest of us.
And, of course, this didn’t happen just once.
It happened, like, every ten minutes.
Which raised some important questions.
How in the hell can such people lack the self-awareness to not realize how rude they’re being to the rest of us?
And why is the Navy promoting such people?
I wasn’t the only one asking myself such questions.
One of the other captains in the class, the prospective commander of a submarine squadron, finally spoke up.
“Listen,” he said to the Run-On Hypothetical guy, “the purpose here is to make you aware of the rules, so that you’ll know what questions ask.”
He continued, “We’re not here to become experts in this stuff.”
God bless you, sir.
I walked over to him at the end of class and thanked him for his comment.
And I hoped it would prompt both the So There I Was and the Obscure Hypothetical guys to change their behavior.
I hoped.
But it didn’t.
They couldn’t help themselves.
“Let me tell you about a time on my ship when . . .”
And, “So, what if . . .”
My grandfather once shared a bit of wisdom with me.
“The less you say, the smarter people will think you are,” he’d said.
I have found that to be true.
The same goes for the converse.
The more you say . . .
Well, you’re not doing yourself any favors.
So, yes:
Leave three things unsaid.
Every day.
Especially with your spouse.
And especially if you’re sitting in a room full of accomplished professionals who,
Whether you realize it or not,
Really just wish,
You’d shut the fuck up.