A Life Lesson in One Sentence

An Old Friend

Oscar apologized for arriving late. He stopped to grab some tacos before our rendezvous at the workshop.

“Lo siento, amigo!” he said, placing the taco bag on the table. “I brought your favorite—chicharrón!” He extended his hand.

For someone in his 70s, he was exceedingly jovial—like a Mexican Santa Claus. But Oscar’s burly frame contradicted the gentle nature within. With his heavy eyelids, he always seemed one step away from a kind smile.

My time in the oilfield was an unforgettable experience, but my plan to leave was finalized. As we sat in silence staring into the fields, I sensed the sadness in his voice.

“I’m going to miss you, amigo.” Oscar took a bite of his taco.

“I will miss you, too, buddy.”

We ate our tacos in silence for a few minutes, wallowing in the sadness, wondering what to say next.

Words of Wisdom

As I finished my last taco, I pulled out a packet of gum. “Gum?”

“Sí! Gracias!”

“Oscar, I know this sucks terribly, but I have to do this—for me.”

“I know. It’s just hard. You know, I didn’t need the money. I just liked hanging around you engineers—especially you, amigo.”

“Can’t believe you liked all of us—especially me. I was the biggest pain in the ass!”

“Está bien!”

I pat Oscar’s back. “There is something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re more than 3 times my age—years of experience behind you. Before I go, can you give me any advice? Anything. I don’t leave till tomorrow. I got all day. I’ll write everything down.”

Oscar gave a hearty laugh. “Write it down? No es necesario, amigo! I only have one sentence for you.”

I cocked an eyebrow in bewilderment. “Just…one?”

Oscar extended his hands outward in a sweeping motion.

“To find the things that are the most valuable in life, you have to take the time and dig deep.”

This dude is out of his mind, I thought. “Oscar, are you high?”

“Nooo! I mean it!” Oscar replied.

I stared intently. “Run it by me again—one more time.”

His eyebrows furrowed as he leaned in. “You gotta dig deep, Ace. That’s where the best stuff is. That’s where it always is—coal, metals, diamonds, oil, truth, anything meaningful in life. There’s very little on the surface. It’s too easy. Too simple. The best stuff is deep down! Entiendes, amigo?”

“I think I understand, Oscar. But I will have to think about it a lot more.”

“You know me. I’ve never been very good with words,” Oscar lamented.

I shook my head. “Not a problem. I understand.”

We spent the day reminiscing and laughing. It was one of the hardest goodbyes in my life.

Answers from the Past

Although I was never close to the other oilfield engineers during my time in Texas, that never mattered.

I had Oscar.

In him, I found a kindred spirit, a valuable friend, a great Spanish teacher, and the funniest janitor I had ever known.

But he was only a janitor for a few years. It was a side job during retirement to ease the boredom. Years prior, Oscar had another profession—one that would add tremendous weight to his life lesson. He had mentioned it only in passing, and I had forgotten about it.

For most of his life, Oscar was a miner. His previous job literally involved digging.

The summary of his experiences was so elegant, so concise, and so profound. It was both literal and figurative. He had indeed summarized his entire life into one sentence, one life lesson.

Oscar admitted he was not good with words, so I had to fill in the missing pieces by breaking down his explanation.

“That’s where it always is—coal, metals, diamonds, oil, truth, anything meaningful. There’s very little on the surface. It’s too easy. Too simple. The best stuff is deep down! ”

Digging for coal, metals, diamonds and oil was easy to understand in the literal sense. And “digging” meant pursuing anything to a deeper level—truly getting to the heart of the matter. But what about the next part? What about the truth?

Confess the Truth

We expect truthfulness in all aspects of our lives, but rarely do we ever get the absolute truth. Many versions of truth are diluted half-truths, white lies, or downright deceit.

Most of the time, when asking for the truth, there are two answers: the one that sounds good, and the one that is the absolute truth.

And we have to dig deeper to find that purest form of truth.

We start by asking ourselves one simple question: what do others have to gain by giving the answer that sounds good?

Suppose someone told you that they support you. Should you blindly accept that as the truth? Or should you entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, it’s the response that sounds good. Do they have much to gain by convincing you that they’re on your side?

This naturally works in almost any form of negotiation as well. Do you have something that others want?

Conversely, people might have much to lose if they reveal the actual truth—all the more reason to hide it.

By persistently digging for the absolute truth, we’ll be actively on the defense against ulterior motives and ill intent, because we will no longer give our trust blindly. In practice, I managed to limit the number of false/opportunistic “friends” and backstabbers in my life to exactly zero (much better compared to my previous track record of 50/50).

Perhaps that could be useful to you as well—having fewer or zero false friends and backstabbers.

Finding Meaning

For some time, I struggled with the final part of Oscar’s explanation. He was not very specific because “anything meaningful” could mean, well, anything.

But I believe the ambiguity was intentional. Perhaps it can indeed mean anything that is meaningful in our lives.

Lifelong Friendship

People naturally hide who they truly are deep down. By digging for the truth, we find the right people who will be good friends.

Business connections and networking, of course, are within a different realm (professional relationships). In professional relationships, it is implied that everyone wants something from each other. Everyone understands the conditions going in.

When it comes to platonic relationships (i.e. friendship), I always joke that to help find my real friends on Facebook, I should change my birthday to something blatantly wrong (6 months off) and delete anyone who tells me happy birthday.

People have said, “then you’ll have like 10 friends left.”

But unlike the online world, real-world friendships are far more impactful. Why care about the number of friends? Only the deep meaningful friendships truly count.

It’s the classic example of quality over quantity. Good friends help you while bad friends can hurt you. So why not limit the number of bad friends?

Let’s face it, you’d rather have four quarters than one hundred pennies.

Love and War

We know the platitude.

All is fair in love and war.

I’ve always found this very interesting. Of all things that relate the to word love, it’s war? Sounds a bit extreme. Or is it?

Sometimes it does feel like war. In ages past, love even started wars.

People sometimes compete (to win affection), feel intense amounts of pain, perhaps even feel dead inside if things go awry, or even commit crimes of passion.

So much grief. Upon deeper analysis, the comparison seems rather appropriate.

But if we go for the profound relationships, if we dig deeper for that meaningful connection, perhaps we can do away with many of the grief? Even in the worst case, we’d still dramatically lessen the frequency of pain.

To look for more meaningful connections, we must consider the following.

1) First Impressions

Judging by a first impression is a dumb concept—in any relationship and generally in life. A first impression means very little in the long term—almost nothing, actually.

Simply put, brilliant products can have terrible marketing. So, unless you legitimately feel unsafe, giving people multiple chances to showcase who they truly are is a good idea.

Someone can take decades to become the person they are today. Would it make sense to accurately judge a person in a matter of minutes—or hours even? It would be arrogant and demonstrably false for anyone to say they could with over 50% accuracy—essentially a guess. You’re better off flipping one of those four quarters.

2) “Vibing” or “Clicking”

I cannot overstate this: “vibing” and “clicking” are inherently silly concepts. Your accuracy of the “connection” is going to be abysmal if the other person is shy or reserved—both very common reactions during initial interactions.

Even worse, you’d do terribly against a great bullshitter—someone whose primary motivation is to put up the best front as possible.

For this reason, I’m incredibly suspicious of people who seem great from the start. They could be, but I’ll still be cautious and keep digging.

Of all relationships that I’ve seen end disastrously, the most common response was along the lines of “But we vibed/clicked! I don’t know what happened!”

I picked the above issues specifically because they are characteristically superficial/shallow—the exact opposite of deep.

Equally important, the two issues above are far more common when it comes to romantic relationships.

So, if digging deeper yields better and more meaningful results, what happens when we do not dig deeper?

We get shittier results for our romantic relationships.

Parting Thoughts

Finding meaningful things in our lives will be difficult. It is often much easier to simply settle for what is superficially appealing.

But it absolutely pays off to take some time and dig much deeper so we get to the heart of the matter. Too much time, energy, and resources will be wasted on superficial things.

Oscar was one of the happiest people I have ever known. I envy his happiness immensely, and I sincerely believe in his life lesson—a prime motivator of that happiness.

If Oscar’s previous sentence, in its original form, is still confusing, perhaps I can rephrase it.

“To find that which is most meaningful in life, you must be willing to dig deeper.”