You Were Fooled?

So, You Were Fooled? That’s Not My Fault

I went to a movie the other night about the life of baseball great Yogi Berra.

“It Ain’t Over” deeply touched me.

Berra was famous for his sayings, my favorite is “When you see a fork in the road, take it.”

Simple, true and yet words that force you to have to think.

He was a man who, for the most part, was overlooked and not taken very seriously by the press.

In the end, his simple, honest, trustworthy life left a mark on the world few public figures today ever will.

His family fought for his place in baseball because for them it was the right thing to do.

They found their fork in the road and took it.

Then I listened to a podcast with Jordan Peterson and RFK, yeh, Robert Kennedy’s son. episode #1999

They spoke of the lies, the corruption and the mismanaged facts about, you know, and I found myself wondering how did this happen?

Rogan and Kennedy pointed out how easily people are fooled and once fooled it’s hard to admit mistakes were made.

Hard but not impossible for the humble in spirit.

There’s a fork in the road, take it.

They quoted what they thought was Mark Twain. I did a little research and turns out it wasn’t Twain or at least there’s no real proof it was Twain.

Despite that the quote is so descriptive of the times we now find ourselves in.

“It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.”

Re-read that and think about it for a moment.

The actual Twain quote is a bit longer.

“The glory to which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. How easy it is to make people believe a lie and how hard it is to undo that work again.”

There’s a part of me that wants to go back, back to holding in my deepest thoughts in order to get along.

But I saw the fork in the road and I took it.

That fork led me to this place of truth that has no room for lies.

Is it more difficult, the truth usually is.

Some of you disagree and that’s okay.

The information is out there and it’s not that hard to find.

But you may have to turn over other rocks, bigger stones and you may not like what you find once you turn it over.

Sometimes you have to go back to the intersection, take the other fork in the road, and remind yourself it’s better to know you’ve been fooled and start over than it is to be a fool.