Are bad ideas good for us?

Letting in The Orange Cat was quite likely the worst idea ever, and I’ve had some dreadful ideas in my time. The insertion of The Orange Cat into the already chaotic ecosystem of my home could only end in mayhem and blood, but we took him in anyway.

The Orange Cat was hurt. Not fatally, but definitely needing care. There were visits to the vet (she adores him). Daily administrations of antibiotics (minimal damage to humans). Wound care (feline screaming, more significant damage to humans). Feeding involved a tricky dance in which you tried to stop him from grabbing one or the other of your feet while balancing his dinner.

Not-so-strangely, none of this deterred us. He was hurt. But there was also his guilelessness, his adorableness. His mammoth orangeness.

Here I am, presented with feline cuteness, wrath and ingratitude, and I ask myself, “Self, why do you do this?”

I do it – and force my family to go along with it – because it is necessary. When someone is in need (human or not), if we can help them, we do.

But since I’m taking this apart (in the manner of a big-headed cat and a nice bedroom), I might as well really try to take it apart. Is my reason – that offering care is necessary – good enough? What is good enough? What is enough? What is good for cat or family? What if it’s a bad idea? Then, most vexingly, “How bad is a bad idea?”

I wish things were easy and uncomplicated and made sense. But so little is or does. And this is where the bad idea triumphs. Because good ideas (or ostensibly good ideas) have a lot in common with bad ones. The question, I think, is not the goodness or badness of the idea, but the whyness. Understanding why is everything.

Intention counts. Intention and motivation matters, be they good or ill. But they are not the only things that matter. I can intend to do good by someone who is, say, a bit sad. Maybe my idea of cheering them up is to throw them a party.

Suppose they hate parties and are, in fact, monstrously afraid of gatherings. Then, clearly, I have done harm where I meant something quite different.

So far we have the importance of the why, the intention, and now we’re looking at the how. And this is the truly difficult part because very often we know not how.

I’ve got this – I know this one – the how is difficult because we need to try to understand what will work for both the goal and the person or situation.

There are things you can read and videos you can watch about the benefits of bad ideas in stretching creativity and excelling in the workplace. In fact, my thinking about how to frame bad ideas comes for something I read aeons ago.

Post-it notes. I love Post-it notes.

I think part of my love comes from their origin story. This guy at 3M was trying to make a superglue and somehow made a terribly sub-par glue. It was so bad, this glue let you peel it right back off.

And then they realised they could put it back on. Post-it notes: a crazy little mess that makes all our lives a lot easier.

I was in my teens when I read that and since then, I’ve always been inclined to give a second look at something that doesn’t seem quite right at first glance.

I wonder if I was The Orange Cat’s Post-it note. Perhaps I should have listened to the advice to take him to an animal shelter. Maybe they would have taken care of him. Maybe they would have put him down because they didn’t have the time and resources to nurse him.

The world is messy and not a day goes by in which I don’t question why people do what they do and why. Maybe what we call a bad idea is merely an inconvenient one. Perhaps we think it will take too much effort. Maybe we don’t think about how much our help is needed.

Most of all, what I worry about is that we don’t take the time to think through the whats, whys and hows.

The Orange Cat healed beautifully. He’s well now.

He’s still not our cat. He seems to be a community cat. He visits and rubs against our legs, purring.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.