Why We Muddle Through

At one time or another, we’ve all sought guidance about a decision or course of action. We’re generally looking for a clear answer, the kind that leaves nothing to doubt. That helps us feel that we’ve made the right choice or selected the right path. On a few occasions recently, however, the response I’ve gotten from trusted advisors was that the issue was nuanced and the answer wasn’t clear. They specifically said that the best way forward was to “muddle through.”

Initially, that advice felt very unsatisfying. It seemed messy and fraught with uncertainty. But it made me think about what “muddling through” actually means. Merriam Webster says that to muddle is to make turbid or muddy. It’s what happens when you add non-dissolving particulate matter to clear liquid. Mixologists know that a muddler—a device that looks like a tiny wooden baseball bat—squashes fruit or leaves into an otherwise clear drink, effectively muddying it. That might make a great mojito, but how can it be helpful in determining the path forward? How can the best choice be muddling?

To think more about this, let’s consider Troy and his car. Troy has a good job but doesn’t have a lot of expendable income. He has had his car for six years, and it generally works pretty well. Under certain driving conditions, however, it makes a strange noise. When Troy takes it to the shop, the mechanic says that there is a very expensive part that could be causing the problem, but that otherwise the car runs well. He tells Troy that he could invest in a new part—which would cost a good bit of money but might fix the problem—or that he could keep driving the car as it is until there is a larger problem. “There’s always going to be some kind of problem with a car,” says the mechanic. “This is the one that you currently have.” When Troy asks him what he would do, the mechanic says, “I’d probably just muddle through.” Troy decides to drive the car the way it is.

While this advice didn’t satisfy Troy’s wish to have a clear answer, it does do something else that is very important: It accepts reality in a way that a definitive answer does not. It honors the condition of uncertainty, the fact that the liquid of the decision is never entirely clear. There’s always something muddying the water. If you get rid of one kind of mud, another will soon appear. It’s true of any complex situation.

The term muddling through was coined, or at least popularized, by Charles Lindblom, who was a professor of economics and political science at Yale (Lindblom, 1959). Lindblom noted that while there is a potentially ideal way of making complex decisions that weighs every aspect and of the situation and ranks its many values to produce a clear answer, that’s not the way human beings make real-world decisions. It’s not even generally possible. Rather, people consider some aspects of a situation to make small, rather than large changes. Presumably, Troy could have done more research, gone to other garages, and systematically weighed every aspect of his decision. But he needed his car and didn’t want to spend the money, so he decided to muddle through, choosing the pragmatic path— just as Lindblom would have predicted he might.

Life today is endlessly complex. The circumstances of our lives will never be perfect. There are always issues and things that are not clear. Searching for definitive answers or waiting for clarity is rarely an option. And, as Lindblom noted, we have numerous conflicting values or goals. Just as Troy wanted a quiet car but also needed a car and didn’t want to spend money, we want to enjoy life while complex things are happening around us. That involves accepting that there will be conditions that are far from ideal and making decisions that are pragmatic rather than perfect. In other words, muddling through.

Although this way of living life and making decisions initially sounds messy, looked at this way it seems almost zen. It’s accepting and realistic. Right now, that makes me breathe a little easier. So, as we look ahead in a complicated time, here’s to muddling through.