There is no shortage of crooks

Basically I believe that the world is full of good people, and that we good people (if I may be so bold as to include myself in the category) far outnumber the bad people. However, just like a little arsenic goes a long way, bad people have a way of dominating a person's history and time.

I work with very generous people -- benefactors to the institution where I work. People who have no responsibility to donate a thing, but who often donate everything they own to a worthy cause. I was speaking to one such person today, we'll call her Olive, and she has had a run of crooks. It's like they line up at her door. I worry about Olive - she is 80 years old and lives alone. She has had large sums of money funneled away from her from irresponsible sales people representing various mutual funds or other investment opportunities. She even had an actual sociopath in her life.

I diagnosed the sociopath myself. You see, I am now an expert after having read The Sociopath Next Door earlier this year. Seriously, it's not paranoia to say that they are friggin everywhere. The author, Martha Stout, believes that 4% of our population is a sociopath -- I think the number is growing (but we'll talk about that later). Anyway, luckily Olive had a young attorney who smelled a rat and suggested a pre-nup for her and Rat Man, and Rat Man refused to sign it. The attorney also created a trust to protect Olive's assets so that no one else could steal from her. I am happy to report that they did not marry and Rat Man eventually moved on to another victim, God bless her.

And Olive is no dummy. It's just that she has so few people in her life to run things by. You see, there are lots of older folks in our society who have NO ONE. I have had more than a few say to me, "You get to a point in your life where you've outlived everyone else." A project of mine for 2011 is to help Olive find a good attorney and accountant in her community whom she can trust. There are too many complex decisions to be made without solid advice. And although the good people outnumber the bad -- it only takes one to steal everything she has.

Aha moment of the day: Olive said to me, "Never trust anybody." I struggle with trust, but life is a whole lot happier when we have close loved ones. How about instead of Olive's maxim we adopt, Understand that people will disappoint us, but only give decent people the opportunity.