Betting against a Google review The moment I saw his house, I knew my laptop would never work properly again. I’d been pet-sitting in a remote suburb when the sat pet, a cat, broke my laptop screen. Don’t ask how. Such are the heroic risks of pet-sitting. But my luck was in. There was a computer repair shop in an adjacent suburb! “Try Your Luck IT” But was it good luck, or bad luck? Google reviews (3.0 stars) didn’t inspire massive confidence. But replacing a screen – surely just a part and a few screws – what could go wrong? Have Faith, Brendan. So I made my way to Try Your Luck. My confidence ebbed as I entered. The entire shop projected a subtle hope that no-one would ever come inside - a sense amplified when Jerry (the owner) trudged his reluctant way to the front desk to discover what more would be asked of him this day. Browbeaten. Defeated. With eyes that had forgotten the sound of children’s laughter, Jerry stared at me, like a guilty man awaiting sentence. “Run, Brendan,” an inner voice urged me. But I didn’t run. I asked Jerry to repair my laptop. As much for my sake as for his, I sought to bring some life to our conversation. And Jerry himself flickered to life when we discovered we were living in the same suburb, and in fact the same street. He in #13, me and the cat in #12. What a happy coincidence! We chatted and connected more. He knocked $30 off the price. Things were looking up. Light came to his eyes. Colour to his face. The world fell a little from his shoulders. Google was right Of course I was curious to see his place when I went home. And that was when I knew my laptop’s fate was sealed in mediocrity. It was the garden. In a street of houseproud new home owners (it was a new development), the lawn and garden in #13 was the “Before” photo in a landscapers brochure. It had never known the touch of human hand. It was a jungle. It boldly stated a life philosophy of “What’s the least I can do?” I had to follow up with Jerry a few times before I got the laptop back. Sure enough, it was scratched and stained with glue. Pixels were bleeding in patches on the screen. His offer to fix the camera broken during the repairs was genuine when he made it, but withered on the vine of good intentions. The hidden benefits of virtue But this is not about judging Jerry and his standards. He’s running his own business and who knows what challenges he’s faced and is facing, and what successes he is having. I don’t. He’s a nice guy and I genuinely like him. But, since that experience I have been looking more closely at my own standards. I’ve been asking “Does it matter?” Does it matter that emails have sat in my inbox for weeks, or months? Or that I have never polished my work shoes? Does internet scrolling really serve me? Do my broken promises really not matter? The to-do list not done. The important conversations avoided. The car unwashed. Yes, the garden uncared for. The shortcuts taken. The people judged. Do these things matter? There can be a temptation to leap into self-judgement, or self-defence at this prompting. An assumption that there is an implicit attack behind the question. But there isn’t. I’m just asking, honestly, do these things matter? Sidestep that temptation to judge, and the answer is almost inevitably that, yes, they do matter. And surprisingly, in truly recognising that they matter, I realise that I do. Just acknowledging that the email detritus in my inbox deserves attention, somehow I feel better about myself. Then resolving those crusty messages is not something I should do – I actually want to do it. This is how recognising the value in the world around us lightens our own burden. Living with virtue, we want to do what we should do. That sounds like a good way to live.