Remember when your friend would way "I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone!" and you nodded, agreeing to keep silent? And your friend told you something like "we got a puppy" or "my big sister is going off to college" -- things you would have found out anyway, but because your friend was first to tell you, it was your shared secret. And when you found out everyone else already knew it, you just felt silly...and very young.
There are things you need to know, that apparently no one has offered to tell you before. 'Voice of Experience' kinds of things. 'Secrets' that everybody else knows. Things that, when you think about it, just seem obvious, but if you've never given them any thought or never had the opportunity to learn from someone, they take on some importance.
I know a lot of stuff, gathered from reading, advanced education, travel all over the world. I wonder why other people don't know this stuff. It seems like common knowledge to me...common sense. Then I realize there is nothing 'common' about having good sense any more. I see children, teenagers, young adults around me who only know things that they are taught in school. They know how to take a test, get a good grade, get into college. Maybe their parents worked. Maybe the good grades were all that mattered. Maybe there was no time for teaching life skills at home. Maybe the life skills were simply for survival.
So...when something occurs to me that might help explain the world a little, I'll post it here, as if I'm spending an afternoon with you, teaching you something useful to carry out into the world. It doesn't matter if you're 8, or 15, or 28...your mind is open, you want to fill it with stuff that will help you be a better person and carry something -- besides test scores -- forward in your life.
It takes some nerve to offer this. It's going to be my opinions, my bias, my view of life. So take it with a grain of salt. Go look for other opinions. Make your own decisions. I'm telling you MY secrets...which won't be secret for long.
