This isn’t about your personal knowledge about yourself – it’s about what you think is your knowledge about anybody else, especially those closest to you.

Specifically, I’m talking about where you believe your “knowledge” should take you concerning the lives of others. As a parent, I admit that I wanted on many occasions to direct my children’s goals. I came to the realization thankfully that it is their lives to live and choices they make are based on how they feel about how they want to be.

And that’s as it should be. Unless, of course, we’re talking about them doing something harmful to themselves or others. In that case, there’s still little or nothing we can do because again it is their choice, and we can only offer assistance, guidance, etc. Guess what? If you did a pretty good job as a parent, they may come around – not to your way of thinking necessarily – but to their own truth and path.

It is detrimental to anyone who allows another to direct their life by making life choices for them, especially our children. For one thing, they will never be able to function properly. You cripple them because you take away their ability to make decisions, which causes them to totally lose their self-confidence. Whatever goals they may have had (unless the brainwashing began at a very young age), they put aside and live the life you’ve chosen for them. Our job is to demonstrate what could be (once we see what talents or aspirations they have) and then allow them to decide if this is their life course. It is not to live vicariously through them or to create clones.

And for the adults who allow others to decide for them it’s the same thing – self-confidence goes out the window and you are crippled. No one should decide who you want to be with, what you want to do with your life, or how you want to spend your money. Remember that you came here alone (even if you were part of a multiple birth) and you will leave here alone, so you alone should be the one to determine everything in between.