As children we are encouraged to “Be ourselves.” We certainly can do this, but if we do, don’t expect others to always like us. We may lose friends, career promotions, and be alienated from family. The truth is that people often prefer the fake versions of us, depending upon whether we naturally have an agreeable personality or not.
The Boy Scouts of America just went bankrupt and dissolved due to lawsuits based on tens of thousands of incidents of sexual abuse of young boys. Pedophile priests and pastors ran rampant in the Catholic Church for decades. The truth is you cannot trust your son or daughter with strangers, even members of your own family.
There are some people who are dead inside. There is no hidden good person inside of them.
Many people cannot realize the absurdity of the rat race until they have completed the maze.
Some people are scapegoated by their families for no reasons of their own. So many years and tears are wasted trying to “resolve” differences which have nothing to do with what the scapegoat has done. He/she hasn’t “done” anything. They are victims of an unwinnable lottery. If you are a scapegoat in your family nothing you say or do can change that. You cannot “work out your differences,” “lay out your heart,” and have it change anything. In fact, they will use your vulnerabilities against you. There is only one way out—get out and don’t look back.
As a parent with three children you see the enormous power of genetics. Parents help nurture their children, but 80% of who we are is the product of the random combination of genes. My fraternal twins might as well be from different planets—looks, height, intelligence, hair color, and interests—all radically different. Studies of identical twins reared apart show the huge influence of genes on several aspects of our personality, intelligence, height, preferences, etc.
One man’s heaven is another man’s hell.
Trust your gut. It usually ends up being right, and you realize this after you ignore it and give ______ suspicious person your trust.
Everything is politics—even your family. Next, you can be the most competent person in the world, but if you aren’t political, you will be passed over, bullied, or ignored.
The strongest form of violence is mass quiet assent.
#5 does not mean every family scapegoats. Most don’t. But for those that do, sometimes the only resolution is leaving. Next, many family conflicts are caused by misunderstandings that can be resolved. I am referring here to those which cannot be resolved by “talking it out.”
#8 Trusting your gut doesn’t mean all people are bad. Nor does it mean that your gut is always right. Some people have poor instincts related to people so their “guts” are not very good guides. I am referring to your average person.
#9 means the interaction between people. Politics is “us,” not just what happens in Washington DC or London. It is the dynamics of human interaction.
#10 Mass quiet assent is what enables the few or many to conduct acts of violence. It was the neighbors of Jews in Eastern Europe calling on their Jewish neighbors to be arrested and taken to concentration camps. It was the silence of the German people. It is the silence of American citizens (and the outright support) of children being separated from their parents at the Southern border.