By: Martin Merritt, esq.
Past President, Texas Health Lawyers Association
Past Chair, DBA Health Law Section
martin@martinmerritt.com
“Please Tell Me you Didn’t. . . How to Keep Clients Out of the Jailhouse, Poorhouse and Lawyers Out of the Nuthouse” -Blog
As you can tell, I love talking about health law & litigation issues, and general wellbeing, if you have any health law questions or better yet, need to refer a case, just call or drop me an email and I will happily talk.
Saturday Night Live ran a commercial parody a few years back, for a birth control pill “Annuale,” which offered women the benefit of having a cycle one week a year. “I would like that,” Kristin Wiig responds, to the narrator’s sales pitch.
A litany of increasingly absurd informed-consent disclosures, however, tells the tale of what to expect hormonally when that one week arrives, including— “notify authorities in your town when this time is imminent, as they may want to incarcerate you preemptively like a wolfman.”
The imagery of tying the hands of your “future self,” is not a novel concept. Homer, a blind Greek poet who lived 3500 years ago came up with it. We learn from Homer that we need to recognize the danger from our capacity to be two different people (one rational and one, not so much, depending on whether we are calm or excited).
Then we can take steps to “tie our own hands” in order to keep “future us,” from doing stupid stuff, when that time comes.
Homer’s The Odyssey. Homer tells of a human protagonist, “Odysseus” (in Greek, and later translated to Latin as “Ulysses.”) The Odyssey is the second of two poems. The first was The Iliad, which tells the story of The Trojan War, in which Odysseus participates.
But Odysseus didn’t want to go. When Helen of Troy was abducted, the king demanded her suitors go fight the Trojan War to get her back. Odysseus apparently thought, “meh,” and faked “lunacy” (again with the wolfman and moon reference) in an attempt keep from having to go look for her. (Come to think of it, Odysseus might also be the first “red-pill” guy in history.)
The “Siren’s Song.” In The Odyssey, the second poem, we are told of Odysseus’ 10-year journey back from the Trojan War. One stop was an island inhabited by “sirens,” whose beautiful songs lured sailors to their deaths on the rocks. Odysseus wanted to hear the song, but he knew that his “future self” would be too out-of-control, if he didn’t do something to tie his hands. So, he made was is known today as a “Ulysses Pact.”
He told his men to tie him to the mast of the ship (like the “wolfman” in the 1941 Lon Cheney movie) and they must promise not to untie him, no matter how much he begged them, until they had passed out of earshot of the Siren’s song.
A “Ulysses Pact,” then, is a plan which recognizes that although we humans may have pretty good sense when we are not inflamed by passion, we will definitely be passionate about something in the future and do stupid stuff.
You might say we are two different people, depending on which version of us is “driving the bus.” (“Road rage,” I’m talking to you)
If we are smart, and honest with ourselves, we will plan for this duality, and make a “Ulysses Pact” with ourselves to prevent doing something stupid in the heat of a moment that we absolutely know is coming.
Suppose, for example, that we know in more rational moments that we should save some our income for a rainy day. But, we also know, when the income hits our checking account, it might “burn a hole in our future pockets.”
As Oscar Wilde said, “show me a man who lives within his means, I will show you a man who lacks imagination.” It is easy to think of fun things to do with money.
But, if we make a “Ulysses Pact” with ourselves, to have a certain amount taken out of our future pay before it ever hits our checking account, we never see it and don’t have the chance to spend it. In essence, we have the funds “tied up” so future you can’t do any damage when he turns into a “wolfman.”