Why are we so obsessed with taking the high road?

Whenever I check the mailbox, I feel a bit like a war bride, fumbling with the key, hoping to get word from my brave beloved. Sadly, the digital age has robbed the mailbox of any remaining romance; even bills now come mainly via email. These days, it’s mostly just mailouts from real estate agents promoting recent sales in the area or people offering landscaping services for a garden I don’t have.

Outside of that, the only physical mail I regularly receive is from my strata company. Their current concern is the common area on the ground floor of the apartment building that I live in.

When they go low, you should also go low. Even lower, in fact.Credit: Michael Howard

Tucked away under the stairs, it’s the kind of dead space that no one knows what to do with, though it’s ideal for parking a pram, which is precisely what I do, given our building has no lift.

For reasons still unclear, this bothers my downstairs neighbour, whose apartment faces the space, so much that she insists on filing a complaint every few months accompanied by a series of grainy photos of the offending pram.

Last month, another letter arrived explaining that the pram “poses a continued safety hazard for those using the foyer and stairwell” and violated by-law 3, Obstruction of Common Property.

Unless you intend to mount the pram and ride it down the stairs, I fail to see the safety risks, but the letter was clear in its summation: “All personal belongings must be removed from the stairwell immediately.”

Me preparing to push my pram into the abyss, so I never get another letter from strata again. Credit: iStock

Admittedly, I’d prefer not to be involved in this situation, but it had quite literally arrived at my doorstep, so I had only one choice. Rather than complying, I sent my own photos showing that in addition to the pram, under the stairs, there is a wooden sideboard with nothing in it, a vase full of fake flowers and a steel chair no one sits on.

Aware they belonged to my neighbour, I explained that when and if they were removed, I would also remove the pram.

Two days later, strata told me not to worry about the pram. “That’s great,” said my wife when I explained we’d won PramGate. “But I still wish you’d taken the high road.”

For as long as I can remember, there has been huge buzz around the high road. In terms of iconic roads, it’s right up there with Abbey and the Great Ocean. Its fame was sufficient to inspire The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond, a Scottish folk song that objectively proves taking the low road is better because you arrive in Scotland first, should that be your aim.

Even before I learned there was a low road, I knew in my bones that no matter the circumstance, I must never take it.

But life, like roads (ha!), can lead you to many different places, and the more experience you accumulate, the more you realise that consistently taking the high road can seem a bum steer.

Earlier this week, the world watched Donald Trump return for his second stint in the White House.

From the moment he announced his bid for the US presidency in 2016, appearing on an escalator in Trump Towers and descending, quite literally, into politics, Trump has made taking the low road a powerful part of his brand. Nine years (and two impeachments) later, he continues to avoid the high road at all costs.

Donald Trump taking the low road on his way to world domination.Credit: FilmMagic

Conversely, it was Michelle Obama who popularised the saying, “When they go low, we go high”, while speaking at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Having seen how the most recent election played out, I suspect Michelle wishes her party had read the room and dipped slightly lower.

It may be a sign of decline that we live in an age of self-interest driven by a desire for self-preservation. Doing what you believe is right in service of the greater good is an increasingly challenging task when one can no longer agree on what constitutes great or good.

Is this repurposed moral relativism? Perhaps. But I prefer to believe that if the game has changed, there’s no point in playing by the old rules.

Admirable as it may be to maintain a rigidly moral outlook, you are setting yourself up for constant failure, or worse, having to carry an incredibly heavy pram up three flights of stairs every single day.

Find more of the author’s work here. Email him at [e-mail] or follow him on Instagram at @thomasalexandermitchell and on Twitter @_thmitchell.

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