Warning signs

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- By Bruno Gideon

We have lots of different names for them – our gut instinct, our inner voice, wisdom from above, ESP – but they may all be categorized under the heading of warning signs: messages to us that something is not quite right, that we should take some time to reconsider a situation, that we should avoid getting involved with certain people, projects, or investments. Most people say that their warning signs are accurate. How do they know that? Because every time they have ignored them, they have lived to regret it!

To see things in the seed, that is genius.
- Lao-Tzu

Always hold your head up,
but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.
- Max L. Forman

The number one reason we ignore warning signs is that heeding them would require us to go against our own desires. We want to get rich quick, so we ignore the warning signs that an investment is not sound. We don’t want a romantic spell we’re in to be broken, so we suppress our instincts about the character of the person we love. We can just taste the success that’s going to come with a new job, so we look past the evidence that the company is on shaky ground.

Here, then, is a personal policy that we would do well to adopt: to listen the hardest to whatever it is we most don’t want to hear!

- Bruno Gideon