What's Da Buzz?

The title fits the category of Vested Wisdom so why not write about it.

In the USA, there are many phrases that I hear that usually lead me to question my hubby “what does that mean?” Some of them are rather easy to pick up the meaning on assuming he isn’t playing a trick on me like he often does. I’m not going into his answer on my question of “Where do walnuts come from?” again.

One of the phrases here that I have come to understand very well is “young and dumb.” That may sound like an insult to those who are young but it isn’t really. It depends a lot on your set of life experiences. In the Philippines and other places, you are not given the option of being “young and dumb” for long as your decisions determine whether you can succeed in life or live on dirt floors struggling to survive. So life trains you quickly so you can have the experience base to make wise choices. That is the key detail. We start out “young and dumb” but “with age comes wisdom” which is gained from experience. This experience you can learn from your elders or watching siblings screw up or the hard way of screwing up yourself and facing the consequences.

Life in the Philippines trains you quickly on this. Life in the luxuries of the USA often does not unless your individual circumstances did train you quickly. So the term “young and dumb” often applies to the ages of 15-25 or that time when the person thinks they know it all and have it all figured out. The arrogance that comes with ignorance and thinking you are right is where those who “have been there and done that” come up with the phrase “young and dumb.”

For a few brief examples, we had some serious issues with some tenants we had when we were Property Managers. They were both under the age of 21 but somehow thought it was perfectly fine to hold illegal, underage drinking parties late at night disrupting the rest of the tenants and trying to throw quarters into a bottle of booze sitting in the sink with a trash compactor. These brilliant idiots managed to get their coins jammed up in the trash compactor and eventually got kicked out.

Recently in a discussion with a few young ones I have to associate with, they thought the answer to my frustration with issues surrounding who we were serving was best answered by the statement “You are in America now not the Philippines.” These brilliant ones required me to spell it out to them…

I am from a different country. You do not leave the values, culture and heritage of where you grew up just to be like the crowd. Life in the Philippines trained me in how to be conservative to survive. You don’t throw away life lessons just to embrace the worst of a new culture. You use them to help your new culture improve.

Anah

“If the shoe fits, wear it.”