It's Hard To Be Not Bad

“How’s it going?”
“Not bad.”

“How was it?”
“Not bad.”

“How’s work?”
“Not bad.”

Not bad. It’s vernacular that has lost its umph!. Or maybe it never had it.

It’s a phrase that has become our basic resting pulse. But by my standards, “not bad” isn’t just kind of good. It’s something to strive for. Because “not bad” is the absence of bad. And eliminating bad is hard work.

I was reminded of this in a recent conversation I had with a Creative Director.

“What do you think of the work?” He asked, referencing an ad myself and others were working on.

“It’s not bad,” I said, trying to read what he thought about it.

“You’re giving it too much credit,” he said. “I can tell you think there’s something bad about it.” His tone wasn’t dick-ish. Rather, thoughtful and approachable.

“You’re right. But I can’t put my finger on how to make it better,” I said.

He grabbed the piece we were examining for a closer look. He lifted his glasses to the top of his head, pushing back his grays. A well-practiced gesture.

“Let’s go back to your initial critique,” he said. “For it to be ‘not bad,’ there would be no ‘bad’ to remove or replace. But there are things we would change, yeah? Let’s start there. Point out the ‘bad’ in this ad.”

I pointed out a punctuation mark that was no big deal but would have robbed me five minutes of sleep.

We followed this line of questioning until we were both satisfied. Until every “bad” was worked through. Until we couldn’t find any more “bads.”

He looked at the work, then looked at me, then said with approval, “Not bad.”

It’s hard to be not bad. It took intentional thought, critical judgement, questioning, and questioning the questioning. It’s hard to be not bad.

Whether you’re working on ads, processing relationships, or resolving to be a better self, sometimes it’s useful to look at eliminating “bads” as opposed to bettering “goods.”

Sometimes ridding bad is as good as it gets.

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