Bad Advice?

I walk my dog, Princess Poops-alot at a complex that includes a very large high school and somewhat smaller middle school.  Since school is out for the year, the marquis at the middle school has this message:
"Schools out.  Have a good summer.  Don't ever change.  Stay cool."

I don't think that's the best message to send the young people, and they hopefully will ignore it as they do so much else that gets put on school marquis.  Seriously, don't ever change--stay like a thirteen-year-old for the rest of your life (as if one could?)  "Be the best you you can be" would challenge them and still affirm them.

Stay cool?  Well, considering summers in my region, yes, that makes sense, but not cool in that other sense.  Young people are perplexed with being cool--how to do it, what it means, how to sustain it.  Arriving at coolness is a fruitless and futile errand.

In that vein, I recommend this for young parents:  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/06/03/what-to-do-when-other-kids-think-your-son-is-oddball-or-queer.html?intcmp=hpff 

I like to think I was this kind of parent.

We here advice, witticisms, and observations every day that do not stand up to the light of inspection.  I love the "there are two types of people. . . " ones.   Those are usually off-base, although I like mine:  there are two types of people, those who think there are two types of people and those who don't.

In my declining years I am seeing the Goldilocks version has a lot of merit:  Two sides, and the middle way.  I think that is the essence of the Christian faith--the fine line, the narrow way we walk is the way between the extremes.  The way between legalism and license, reason and faith, love and judgment.

What quotes or truisms do you know that do not stand up to light of inspection?




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