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The question

I've worked in the same business for 15 years, a slave to the Man. About a year ago, I convinced a colleague to quit and team up with me to start our own business.

I'm the creative, he's the suit - he sells our stuff and manages the business end.

We've done pretty well over the past year, but like any startup, we had some rocky patches. However, things were taking off and "the suit" was delighted.

I was just approached by an established company that offered me more money than I've ever made (even now), a corner office, company car, insane expense account - the works. It was literally an offer I couldn't refuse.

So I accepted it, but now my business partner's furious and says I'm leaving him in the lurch.

This is business, but he's taking it personally - what do you think I actually owe this guy?

THE ANSWER

Modern life, as L. Rust Hills - fiction editor of Esquire for 30 years and author of How to Do Things Right - once observed, is a never-ending battle between scruples and money.

It's good to see that you do have some scruples about your former partner. I applaud you for that.

On some level, I do think you owe him. Some might say, "it's business, not personal" and leave it at that. But by convincing him to quit his job for the Man, you altered the course of his fate. He's has to make a monthly nut like all the rest of us, and now he's scrambling - that's quite personal.

Why not offer to help him find your replacement? It's extra work for you, but it shouldn't take too long. I mean, no offence, but are there not quite a few "creatives" out there? Could you not, perhaps, throw a stick in a hipster district and hit six or seven of them who would leap at the chance to sit in your ergonomic, adjustable, high-tech chair?

Help him get a new creative partner, he'll get back on track with the company, your karma stays intact, and the sun continues to shine. Better than having a guy out there cursing and shaking his fist at you.

It's hard to go through life without making enemies. How you deal with them is as important as how you deal with your friends. In Godfather II, Michael Corleone (quoting from Sun Tzu's The Art of War) says: "My father taught me many things here. He taught me in this room ... 'Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.' " It's a great piece of advice, but I'd go farther and add: "While you've got your enemies close, why not try to turn them into friends?" Because having enemies is a psychic weight you carry around. When you change someone from enemy to friend, you can feel the weight lifted off you.

Keep your ex-partner close, have a lot of lunches with him, work with him to help find the solution to his problem (a problem you created, after all), try to explain why you did what you did.

After all, he could continue to grow, go global and some day be in a position to offer a new job to a "creative" with an even more fabulous salary than the one you are about to enjoy, and it'd be too bad if he passed you over because of bad blood.

If, despite your best efforts he still insists on bearing a grudge, you should probably just shrug it off and move on. Because it seems to me you did what you had to do and it's just the nature of the way things work. As Gloucester glumly says in King Lear: "Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide." Likewise, partnerships dissolve, couples get divorced, people move to different cities - sadly. My personal utopia (probably because I moved around a lot as a kid) would be if everyone stayed in the same jobs, stayed married, stayed friends, stayed put - but life's not like that. Part of him knows that, and part of him also knows that, in your shoes, he probably would have done something similar. Zero in on that part of him and maybe you can turn the whole thing around.

David Eddie is an author and screenwriter. He has published two books, Chump Change and Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad.

damage@globeandmail.com