‘The Seven Mistakes of Life’: A Forgotten Book Sounds Alarms We Need to Hear

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From the beginning of the republic, Americans took interest in Ancient Rome. Founding Fathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams looked to certain Romans—Cato the Younger, Cicero, Plutarch, and others—as mentors and guides. Movies like “Quo Vadis,” “Spartacus,” and “Gladiator” attracted huge audiences. In the last few years, commentators and pundits compared the cultural and political turmoil in the United States to events just before the fall of the Roman Empire. Recently, a trend circulated on social media where women asked men how often they think of the Roman Empire. Many are shocked when most of the men reply “Every day” or “A couple of times a week.” 

It seems only natural, then, that Cicero’s “Six Mistakes of Man” is popular with online audiences.

There’s just one problem. Cicero didn’t make this list.  

Its creator was Bernard Meador, who wrote and included “The Seven Mistakes of Life” as a chapter in his 1914 self-help guide, “Secrets of Personal Culture and Business Power.” As time passed and Meador was eclipsed by Cicero, Meador’s seventh mistake—“The failure to establish the habit of saving money”—disappeared from the list, perhaps cut as un-Ciceronian. Nevertheless, his precepts are identical to those so many attributed to Rome’s great orator.

Should it matter that an obscure American businessman, rather than the illustrious Marcus Tullius Cicero, wrote the “Six Mistakes of Man,” which has roused so much online interest? That question I leave to you, readers.

Clearly, however, this list has struck a chord and is worth a look. Below are what Meador deemed “mistakes that short-circuit our progress and seriously hinder the development of all men and women.” 

1. ‘The delusion that individual advancement is made by crushing others down’

When I mentioned this point to a friend who works for a large company, she brought up fellow employees who regularly snipe at others as they jostle for reward and recognition. We see this same machinery at work in politics, where politicians deliver ad hominem attacks and gloat over their adversaries’ gaffes, all to curry favor with voters.

“So long as a man’s vision is blurred by this mirage,” observed Meador, “he can certainly do no constructive work toward building himself and toward building other men.”

2. ‘The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed’

In “85% of What You Worry About Never Happens,” Dr. Charles Black cites a Cornell study that arrived at this very conclusion. Not only that, but researchers found that we solve an additional 12 percent of our problems. Only 3 percent of our worries, it turns out, have any basis in reality.

Bernard Meador was more concerned about regrets we hold onto. “A great many men and women have destroyed all of the happiness and all of the possibilities that life held in store for them by worrying over things that never could be changed. ”

Both men agreed that worry is often more destructive than the objects of our apprehension.  

3. ‘Insisting that a thing is impossible because we ourselves cannot accomplish it’

Want to lose weight? Boost your scores on a college entrance exam? Win a promotion at work? Declare these goals as impossible, and you’ve just uttered a self-fulfilling prophecy. “The campaign of the man who fails,” writes Meador, “usually consists of an army of excuses.”  

The trick here is to banish the word impossible, set a goal, and go after it.

4. ‘Attempting to compel other men to believe as we do’

Of all the points on Meador’s list, this one is most pertinent to today’s culture. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia, which occurred just three years after Meador published his book, ignited a century of bloodshed, murder, oppression, and mayhem., all the result of dictatorial regimes seeking to compel belief in certain ideologies. 

Today the United States is also a battlefield of creeds and personal philosophies, a conflict that has wreaked havoc on our culture, infected our politics, and damaged many families. Meador remarked, “The mistake of attempting to force another man, or a number of men, or a people, to believe as we believe, has been responsible for most of the wars that have strewn the world with the dead bodies of men and women, with wreck and ruin, through all the thousands of years that have been.”

5. ‘Neglect in developing and refining the mind by not acquiring the habit of reading fine literature’ 

“Good literature,” noted Meador, “is to the mind what rain is to the soil. Without the assistance of splendid books, the mind must always remain in the thistle and cockleburr stage.” 

This point is more apropos to today than when “Secrets of Personal Culture and Business Power” appeared. Meador wrote  just before the advent of mass media—radio, television, the Internet. It was likely that people in 1914 read more books for entertainment and edification than people today. By neglecting fine literature, our minds remain among the “thistles and weeds” of our screens and phones. 

6. ‘Refusing to set aside trivial preferences in order that important things may be accomplished’

Meador wrote, “If we could only leave our personal feelings out of important matters that must be decided wisely and intelligently … it would be possible for us to accomplish a great deal more, to advance a great deal faster, and to avoid much of the petty jealousy and strife that unfortunately exist among men.”

Here, Meador echoes the largely forgotten virtue of disinterestedness so valued by America’s Founders. It’s the  ability to put aside personal feelings and opinions and work for the greater good. Today, pettiness and animosity color everything from our dysfunctional federal government to social media. The consequences of “this most unfortunate temperament,” as Meador dubbed it, are all around us. 

7. ‘The failure to establish the habit of saving money’

The U.S. Congress has abandoned the idea of making up a budget and sticking to it. Many Americans try to set aside money these days, including those with little income, yet find it increasingly difficult in the current avalanche of inflation.

Here is one mistake whose dire consequences are visible. 

So, there we have it, not Cicero’s six mistakes of man, but Meador’s seven mistakes of life. 

Taking into account the confusion about the authorship and the difference in the number of these mistakes, I propose adding one more blunder we should work to avoid: Believing and accepting unusual information acquired online, or delivered by a public official or expert, without verification.

As we enter the final lap of 2024’s political contests, we need to find ways to separate truth from lies, rumors, and misinformation. “Trust, but verify,” Ronald Reagan said of our nuclear arms negotiations with the Soviet Union. Regrettably, we must do the same with the information given to us by the media, political class, and experts. 

The good news is that parents and grandparents can take this opportunity to teach adolescents how to double-check online news and information, as did some people with Cicero’s “Six Mistakes of Man.” The rest of us can practice  healthy skepticism, willing to believe what we hear and read but demanding proof if something seems amiss or outrageous.

As for whatever trials this summer and fall of 2024 may bring us, we might take some further advice from Bernard Meador: “Remember that great deeds, vision and a broad knowledge of life and men are the products of courage, and courage is born in the cradle of adversity.”