Paint the Back of the Fence

a simple concept that is easy to miss

I read that when Steve Jobs was young, his dad was having him paint a fence in their backyard. His dad made him paint both sides even though there was just a forest on the other side. When Steve asked why he had to paint the back if no one will see it, his dad replied..

“Because you will know.”

I wonder how much this type of thing matters. Apparently, Jobs insisted that the inside of all Apple products be beautiful because of this very principle. How much does that philosophy have to do with Apple’s success? Who knows but I bet it’s not nothing.

The inside of a Mac Studio (what I’m typing this on right now)

It’s interesting to think about what things you overlook or let slide because “no one will know” but all the while, the fact that YOU know is the thing that really ends up having the negative impact.

Something that I think can illustrate this is when someone has martial arts training. If you’ve ever trained martial arts you will know that the way you walk around and interact with people changes pretty significantly. This may not be the same for everyone but it was certainly the case for me even after a very short 3-4 month stint of training Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu.

I was constantly sizing people up, imagining a potential altercation and also enjoying the ease I felt from knowing I had above average ability to defend myself if needed.

In other words, training was a bit like painting the back of the fence.. No one would see it.. but I would know.

I think a similar effect is at play here when artists add something to their work that will most likely only ever be appreciated by them.

It’s so easy to become conditioned to live for other people and prioritize other opinions and viewpoints over your own. It’s not like those things are never important but I think there is definitely a risk of losing track of your own perception of yourself and the role it can play when it comes to your overall satisfaction in life.

I’ve heard it said that the only thing that matters is how you feel about yourself when you’re by yourself. I’m not sure I fully agree but I can see the merit in the idea.

One of my personal rules is - Don’t do anything that makes you feel bad about yourself

It’s easier said than done but I’m just not really interested in living the rest of my life in a yard with a fence that looks like shit on the outside.. even if I never see it.

I wonder what you would find if you could measure Steve Job’s experience of his yard knowing that he painted the back of the fence in contrast to what his experience would have been if he hadn’t painted it.

Here’s a fun little thought experiment - Imagine you have happiness points that can get added and subtracted as you go through life. Let’s say having an awesome birthday party is + 100 and conversely, shitting your pants on the way to work would be -100. My guess is that having to paint the back of the fence would come to about -3 or -5.

Now, imagine that every time you go out into the yard, the conscious or even subconscious knowledge that the back of the fence looks good is a + 0.5 and if you had skipped it that would be a -0.5.

If you go into the back yard an average of 1.5 times a day for the next 4 years you would be looking at a difference of around 1000 happiness points. That’s like 10 awesome birthday parties or in the later case, shitting your pants 10 times.

This might be a crude example but it helps to identify the impact of the things that we otherwise might miss and also can help determine when it’s really worth painting the back of the fence vs when it might not be.

For a more extreme example, you can also imagine having a dead body buried in your back yard. Even if you were the only one who knew.. that knowledge wouldn’t be a non-factor in your mental wellbeing. The fence example is a basically a super minor version of that.

I think this effect is what Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘A Telltale Heart’ illustrates as well.

I’m all of the sudden feeling convicted for how dusty and dirty it is under my bed.

I don’t think it’s the case right now but eventually I’d like to think of myself as someone who paints the back of the fence and I’m going to be making more of an effort to do so when the opportunity presents itself.

As always, I’m happy to receive feedback, advice or to just have a conversation about any of the topics on this blog! Don’t hesitate to comment or reach out via social media

(@danny_suede on all platforms)

I’m glad you’re here and thanks for reading <3