photo #1590146

The older I get, the more I discover what I don't know. No, I don't consider myself uneducated, nor over educated. I know a lot about many things, yet know absolutely nothing about other things. I guess that's why us elderly folks are prone to fixating on the horizon, sometimes with tears in our eyes. Yes, the most perfect vision is hindsight. We finally get the time to slow down and reflect on where we've been, the victories we had, and the mistakes we've made. At this point, I realize that people in the woods around me in North Carolina have no clue about the lives of those in coastal California, nor can people living in NYC understand us here. There are people around me that have never left this county, let alone the state. There's others like me that have been to many foreign countries, lived there, and many other places in our nation. With such diverse backgrounds, how can we expect to see things through other people's eyes? What makes them think they can understand things from our perspective? Then, there's the question of the day : Who's right? What makes them think so? Who taught them? Where did the information come from? We all know ANYTHING can be justified by taking things out of context, jumping to conclusions, or listening to somebody else who has an agenda. People take things out of context in the Bible all the time, and to the ones who don't know better, it's believable even though it's not true. People like Jones convince others to drink poison Kool-aid, but that's their personal agenda. The key is to research a topic, ask questions, and seek truth and understanding. If you still don't get it, seek further knowledge from somebody you respect. Hunt down somebody who is where you want to be, then write them a letter. The more successful the person is, the more they want to pay it forward and will be glad to send you a reply or even be willing to meet with you. Don't just search for articles that tell you what you want to hear, include those that tell you the other side, too. Remember, for every 1000 people you can find saying one thing, I can find 1000 that will say the exact opposite. That's where the wicket gets sticky. Never surrender your core beliefs to someone who purports to know more than you do. You're just as important as they are, and you're here for a reason. In the Navy, we were taught to avoid talking about politics, religion, and women. We did, of course, and sometimes understood why they said that the hard way, though not that often. My shipmates were a lot like my debate team in high school, and communicated on an equal basis. Between the two, I learned the effectiveness of honest communication. The type of discussion that's entered into with an open mind. What I discovered is the ones who didn't have the depth of knowledge about a topic were the ones who resorted to emotionality instead of facts, which always resulted in loss of the argument. As I've said, we were given a topic to debate on a Monday, and the debate would occur on Friday nights. A coin was flipped, and that determined whether you were for or against the topic. You needed total knowledge of both sides if you stood a chance to win. The key to remember is that we're all powerless to change another. Just like addicts. They've got to WANT to change, and WANT the truth. If they're only in the discussion to change your mind, end it quick. You can tell it fast-- they talk over you, interrupt, and don't listen. In these perilous times, one needs to be very careful about whom they empower. It might not be a mentor, it might be a Kool-aid purveyor !