I’m 73 years old, and I can say without reservation that understanding and staying true to my values has worked out for me — maybe not always in the short run — but definitely in the long term. In my early 20s, as an Army officer in Vietnam, I had to choose to both understand and to live by the values I had learned from my parents.

That experience ultimately formed me as I am today (warts and all) and taught me a lesson that has helped me maintain the core of my value system over the years: wishful thinking and self-delusion are the enemies of conscience and can delude you into excusing violations of your own value system. They should be guarded against because they create a slippery slope that is very hard to climb back up. The easy way is not always the best way and you need to continually re-evaluate your assumptions and motivation. It ultimately pays off. The most recent 24 years of my life have been the best yet (thank you, Brenda).

Please pardon an old man’s preaching.