Getting Even
We all live life out of balance to some degree. Even if we think we are in harmony with everything and everyone, chances are that we haven’t factored in the perspectives of others adequately and we are imbalanced without even realizing it. We get our wheels aligned and our tires balanced because at speed we can feel wobbles in our cars and on our motorcycles, but when things are more slow-going it is hard to fully perceive the out-of-round state of our situations and relationships.
Andrew Cuomo this morning has shown us that forcing yourself to carry on in defiance of a great imbalance in your life is not necessarily the right thing to do and that pulling over and taking the wheels off before the come off on their own at speed is always a smarter play. I thought it was interesting that he resigned his position as the Governor of New York State only after having his female attorney (a very convincing advocate for him on the surface) go through his and her views that the investigation was deeply flawed in ways she was able to clearly exhibit convincingly. That was his need to tell the universe that it wasn’t all fair and he isn’t quite the cad he is being made out to be and that he will vigorously defend himself against any claims, criminal or civil. But it also gives him and his family some cover to say to people that the world got what it wanted, which was his political head on a plate, and that they are in for a fight if they try to further get even with him through any judicial process. It is an interesting question whether he is balancing the books sufficiently through his resignation to suggest that the world will let him roll on to his next chapter in peace or whether the world will say that there is still a reckoning required to keep the world from being wobbly due to his transgressions. Did he even the books or did he paper over the problem with a resignation and left the wobble for others to balance out.
I know the angst he must be feeling. I never flew as close to the sun as he has so my fall to earth was not the subject of a weekday morning news cycle special report. But I did get accused of transgressions that went well beyond reality and I did need to find the balance between righteousness and self-respect. I have stepped down from a position or two as Cuomo has and I have felt some mixture of understanding of the evening of the slate that needed to happen and the overreaching sensationalism that people of all sorts (press, regulators, nay-sayers and even “victims”) feel the need to pile on in these times, sometimes because they see the world and its balance differently and sometimes because they see some personal advantage in doing so.
I can’t tell for sure whether I like Andrew Cuomo or whether I ever liked him. I think I like his brother Chris, the CNN newscaster, but Andrew always seemed a bit harsh to me. He was heroic for a moment in the early COVID days when he seemed a beacon of truth and reason, but even that faded to black when the nursing home data scandal broke. He then looked like any old political hack who was not above bending the truth to sanctify his image. I find myself wondering what a guy like Andrew will do now. The press is reporting that poor little Andrew doesn’t actually own a home of his own since he has been staying at the Executive Mansion in Albany for the past eleven years. Between then and now he got a divorce and lost his Mt. Kisco house, so there you have it. Andrew is now one of the 91,000 homeless people in New York State. Does it feel like the universe might be getting even with Andrew Cuomo right about now?
The moment of falling from grace is a very light-headed one, but can also be very liberating. Using a free-fall to rebalance oneself is not such a bad idea. I remember in 1989 when I was one of the youngest and most senior partners in my firm and in the span of three days I watched like a slow-motion car wreck as a $125 million loan loss to a Memphis cotton merchant that had defrauded us by colluding with the bonded warehouse that was supposed to be holding the cotton collateral for us, went from a no-loss to a full-loss situation in the blink of a slow-motion eye. It happened on my watch and was described by the President of my firm, who I worked for, as an act of omission rather than an act of commission. It sounded good, but it didn’t help. That fateful night in my small divorced-guy apartment in Battery Park City had me wanting to literally run away. I had dreams of hitting the road as a hitchhiker and running as far and as fast as I could. When I awoke…early…I went for a run (yes, I once could run) and then, even after a shower, could not stop sweating. I wandered to the office in a sweaty haze. The elevator ride up had me feeling like all eyes were on me, but, of course, as much as I felt everyone knew what was going on, no one on that elevator did. But I did.
The feeling I’m describing is the feeling of being out of balance. I needed to get even, not with anyone or any thing, but I needed to get even with myself. That morning I was told by the President that the bank would be taking a big write-off and that everyone’s bonus pool would be impacted (maybe they really were all looking at me in the elevator). When he sat down with me (our offices were next to one another), I offered to fall on my sword and there was a long pause as though he were thinking about it. He then said that he and the Chairman had discussed just that and decided that they wanted me to stay, but take some pain for my transgression of omission. This sudden showing of puritanical righteousness was a relief to me. On the surface the relief was that I had not lost the only job I had had for thirteen years since business school. But the real relief was the relief of getting the balance I deserved. This may sound crazy, but when you deserve punishment (I was not the only person who did in that instance, but I can’t worry about their balance, just my own), I think you actually NEED punishment to get back into balance. I feel it is a defining element of character. Those that don’t feel that way will spend much longer wandering in the wilderness wobbling from here to there.
I hope for the sake of Andrew Cuomo’s soul that he feels the same way about the punishment he is taking. The hard part is to figure out whether his “time served” and fall from power is enough to restore his balance or if he has more getting even with the universe to do. I hope he is square, but if not, I hope he is man enough to take what’s left of the balancing act ahead.