Member-only story
Changing the World
One thought at a time
As a child, I was often told to figure things out when I had certain questions. Left to my own devices I was mostly successful.
Like the time I wanted to build a tree house but wasn’t allowed to use nails because my brother had already used all the old ones. Instead, I tied everything together with old twine used for baling hay.
My tree house stayed together and I got extra credit for cleaning up the barn of loose twine.
When I was a teenager my parents told me not to hang out with certain people fearful of bad influences. I was told to use my own mind and not the minds of others. I don’t know for sure who exactly the bad influences were because most of them ended up being lifelong friends. I wonder what their parents said.
Of course, when I was about to make a bad decision someone would say “Use your head.” Lucky for me I wasn’t in the middle of pounding nails. Through trial and error with an emphasis on the errors and being a victim of my stubbornness, I eventually figured most things out.
However, some of my earliest adult years were spent beating my head against proverbial brick walls. One of the teachings I was supposed to get was not just how to be, but how NOT to be.
