Keeping confidences (#613)

I have had the pleasure of living life and growing older with many people in my life. My guess is that because when we are young and inexperienced we tend to make foolish and illogical decisions that we ultimately learn from. The process of trial and error as we grow up is something we all venture into. What binds some if not most of us over long periods of time is how we respect these trial and error events. Many a foolish example can be made about me when I was young and learning through experience. The friends and family that are closest to me are the ones who recognize that my mistakes were "growing pains" and not intentional events to harm or hurt anyone. I look back on the things I have done and on the things others have done as well with the vision of hindsight. What we all have learned from our experiences have made us who we are today. Could we have found a better way to practice our learning? Of course, did we? No. All I know is that I would never hold anything, anyone has done, during their learning experiences against them. It is okay to smile once in awhile over some funny memory of someone's lesson but to be hurtful or thoughtless in recounting it would be wrong. We all have some baggage in our pasts that does not put us in a good light. That is inescapable. My friendships have endured by the fact of us keeping our confidences to ourselves. Life is hard enough without making it harder because of our naivete of the past. Making mistakes is part of life and how we handle those mistakes is what determines our character. Keeping confidences is just another aspect of respect that helps to build life-long relationships.