How Do You Know What You Think You Know?

When I walk with our dog Max or drive alone in my car, I listen to podcasts on YouTube (my wife Elfa prefers to listen to classical music). Though there are many subjects available, my preference is history. I like to listen to smart people talking about how the past affected today’s reality and about people who helped it happen. And I’ve learned that some people today might have different opinions based on their limited knowledge about the past.

It turns out that Christopher Columbus was not a bad guy, after all. Nor was Teddy Roosevelt, who in his time was considered progressive. Winston Churchill, who besides other accomplishments of saving Europe from Hitler, received a Nobel Prize in Literature. Progressives of our days removed all three of these people from the pedestals, which brings to mind recent events close to home. Exactly three years ago, The San Francisco Board of Education voted to remove George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Diane Feinstein and a number of others from the schools’ names. When the story broke out, it was revealed that to make their decision, the Board members consulted sources on Google. The irony is that the San Francisco International airport was named after Diane Feinstein, recently.

A year ago, I was working on my new book “Looking Forward Through Looking Back: 42 Encounters with Pioneers”. I used biographies of those people who came to San Francisco in its early days, going back to 1847. When I sent bios of the pioneers to my editor, she was surprised that there were no book references. When I told her that I had used Wikipedia, she said that this was not a good source of information for the book. Since I did not have time to do the research, I put the project on hold.

That is why while working on my new book “Retirement Solutions for Smart People™. How to Accomplish Financial Comfort”, I had read twenty-two books which I have listed in my publication. I’m writing about this because some people seem to have no time or desire to do the research and choose to rely on the information fed to them by social media without bothering to check sources or reliability of the information. This includes the subject of reverse mortgages that I cover in my book which is available on Amazon. It also includes images of retirees photographed in the entourage of nature. You can see three of them here.

Enjoy and Share with a Friend!