Beatitude #3: If You Are Fleece-able, You Will Be Fleeced.

If you haven't realized that I am passionate about the fact that you don't learn a lot of important things in school or from your peers, parents, mentors etc; check your pulse. Schools should be a lot better about teaching kids and teens about the important topics of life, but I won't perseverate on this as this is my goal with this website, to supplement your formal education. The fact of the matter is, it is impossible to teach everyone about everything, which leads me to my point and is similar to Commandment #5. You just don't know some things. With this, you need the help of other people who are experts in their respective fields. Let's say you knew nothing about cars, but you of course drive one to and from work everyday, pick your kids up in one, drive to the country club in one and maybe you boast that your make and model is superior to that of your friends. All that said, you may not know what the battery looks like under the hood of the car. You couldn't pinpoint the brake caliber if I were to award you with a $200,000 check upon a correct answer. Now your car breaks down, you have to take it to the mechanic. The mechanic seems like a nice enough guy, maybe you are a woman and you find him slightly attractive, so you are already even more influenced by him more than an average person. You tell him what happened and he takes a look at the car. After five minutes of examining the engine, breaks, and underbody of the car he emerges back with a concerned look on his face. "Ma'am this does not look good, your whole transmission blew out, the alternator caught a slight fire, the breaks only grip 4% of their capacity. You should not drive this or any of your kids in it until this is fixed. You need to have this whole engine rebuilt, the breaks changed etc. Until then, you driving this vehicle means you are almost looking to kill yourself and your whole family in it as it has a good chance of combusting into a ball of fire the next time you step on the gas." This will be a grand total of $3000 to do this. You agree because the thought of you killing your whole family is obviously terrifying. Meanwhile, the mechanic is laughing to the bank, all he had to do was re connect the wire to the battery and that takes all of two minutes and would probably be only a twenty dollar charge.

I lay out this wild scenario because while it may seem ridiculous, it can and does happen every day. We as humans put too much trust in people with no knowledge of the topic ourselves. There is a fine line though, am I suggesting you should never leave your house because you are not an expert in EVERY topic and therefore still at risk of being fleeced? Absolutely not! However, in the school system we are always told to be nice, trusting, ethical, be a "Man for Others" (Jesuit school phrase). That is good and dandy to be an honest person who does good for society. But a lot of people are NOT like that. They are like the mechanic described above, they are looking to fleece you. We are not taught how to combat this. My advice, do your own research and learn as much as you can about anything and everything. Also, only use trusted and reputable businesses, people, and/or services. This will greatly reduce your chance of being fleeced.