Growing

I think I am just beginning to grow up, at the age of 72. I was brought up to be very wary of the outside world, to regard other people as dangerous and not to be believed or trusted. It was an understandable mistake by my parents, but that was what they had learned in life and that was what we all, the three boys of the family, learned and grew up with. To some extent, I think, the youngest of us, Roger, has escaped from it because of his experience in the media world. Vernon has to some degree; I certainly have not. It has been a slow and hard journey to believe and to trust that, as Carl Rogers affirmed, 'the facts are friendly'. I did not believe it when I first read those words, and I can only with difficulty tell myself that now. Not only that, but to believe that basically, other people are friendly. I suppose my time in university teaching shored up my parents' message, in that other people were friendly on the surface, but so competitive that at the slightest opportunity, they would stab you in the back. Now I am going with the possibility that I can trust, can believe, can risk. I'll let you know how I get on with that.