Tradition is compressed wisdom

Before you ignore the convention, ask why it exists.

Most conventions exist because something failed without them.

The dress code at the formal dinner. The agenda at the meeting. The "wait twenty-four hours before sending the angry email" rule. The standard contract clauses. The boring industry practices that everyone follows.

Each is a fossil of a previous failure. Someone, sometime, tried it without the convention. It went badly. The convention encoded the lesson.

Most of the time, ignoring the convention reproduces the failure that created it.

This doesn't mean conventions are sacred. Some are vestigial. Some are obsolete. Some were errors from the start. But the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that, not on the convention to defend itself.

Three rules I follow:

Before discarding a convention, find out why it exists. If you can't find out, ask someone older. They probably know.

If the convention encodes a real lesson, respect it until you have a better answer. "I don't like it" is not a better answer.

If you decide to discard it, write down why. Future-you, when the lesson reappears, will need the receipt.

The disrespectful relationship with tradition is the youthful one. The respectful relationship doesn't mean obedience. It means understanding before deviation.

Most innovation is not "new from scratch." It's "carefully chosen deviation from the existing." The carefully chosen part is what's hard.

Tradition is compressed wisdom. Decompress it before you discard it.