The older I get, the more I understand the world and at the same time, the less I understand it. Fifteen years ago, I thought I knew it all. Because I lacked respect for my parents, and for anyone older than me, any opinion, honest advice, or constructive criticism they offered wasn’t valuable in my eyes.
When I wrote this post ten years ago, I believed I’d been robbed of knowledge that would have boosted my retirement, helped me buy a house, or helped me understand how important — and how attainable — financial stability and independence really were. I thought that knowledge wasn’t meant for me, that I was destined to remain a poor minority because of my upbringing. But in America, none of that matters. What matters is asking the right questions and being around the right people who give you the right answers.
Respecting Others as an Adult
Ten years ago, compromise was one of the things I wished I understood. In society, no one gets entirely what they want. From the elite to the poorest among us, we can’t simply cross the street whenever we feel like it — we have to follow the law, or risk getting hit by a semi-truck. There are rules everyone has to follow to fit into society. Though I know now that the more money, power, and influence you have, the fewer of those rules actually apply to you.
If I’d learned this at a much younger age, I wouldn’t have tried to get my own way with things like playing music too loudly at night and being inconsiderate of my neighbors. I left a bad impression, and I strive now to be more considerate — as a representative of my people, of myself, and hopefully, one day, of my children.