We did not equip you to function in the real world.

Your mom and I are trying really hard to be clear about what we think is acceptable behavior. There are certain things we value--honesty, courtesy, confidence, responsibility, stuff like that--and we want to raise you to value those things, too.

Why? Well, that's a valid question.

We know that some of the things we hope you'll come to value can actually put you at a disadvantage in the world. For instance, if you're competing for a job against someone who's as qualified as you, and they lie on their resume, it's not going to help you land the job if you don't.

If we've done our jobs well, you won't. Which might cost you that job--and lots of other jobs. At some point you're probably going to end up believing that we held you back.

We're okay with that.

We're okay with that, not because we believe the liars are going to get caught, and not because we believe in some divine justice that's going to make everything all right in the end, and not because we think failure builds character, but because when you do get the job, it'll be the right one. You'll end up working for the boss who actually checks your references and verifies your employment. Someone who values your honesty as much as your experience.

You'll be able to do your best, secure in the knowledge that it's your performance, not your politics, that will determine your success.

Eventually, you're going to be in a position to hire people. People you're going to rely on to help you do whatever it is that you do.

When that time comes, we have a feeling you'll be okay with the values we worked so hard to instill in you. And you'll find that while we may have shorted you in one department, you have a different set of tools. Tools that help you surround yourself with people who value honesty, courtesy, confidence, responsibility, stuff like that.

You can't properly see a two-dimensional object in three-dimensional space.

This is going to sound like complicated math, but it's not.

Let's say you're looking at a perfect circle, whether it's the opening to a jar, a coin on a table, or the bell of a trombone. Unless you're looking at it from a point exactly above the circle's center, what you see is actually an oval.

Don't believe me? Find something that's perfectly circular and take a picture of it. Then, just to exaggerate my point, go way off from looking straight down at the center of it and take another picture.

Print the pictures out, then take a piece of tracing paper, and trace the circles you took pictures of.

Unless you're in exactly the right spot, both of the tracings are going to be ovals. (If the first one looks like a circle, rotate the tracing paper a quarter turn and trace the circle again. That'll show you how much you're off.)

So how do you know that something is a circle?

You know because your brain adjusts for your perspective on the circle. It evaluates the information is has about the environment that the shape is in to draw conclusions about the shape.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with life. Well, actually, a lot.

Because a three-dimensional object is more complicated than a two-dimensional one. And a situation is more complicated than an object.

So how do you know what shape things are in? You know because just as with a shape, your brain adjusts for your perspective. And it's no accident that the same word--perspective--is used to mean both the angle and direction from which you view something and the particular frame of mind you have about something.

Your perspective establishes your expectation. But the solution is also a problem if you forget that you have a perspective. Then you only see things from your point of view, without considering that there are other ways to look at them.

The trick is to be aware of your perspective. And to be aware of others'. That way, you can understand why something that looks perfectly obvious to you might not be so clear to somebody else.

When you really know a person, you can write his or her epitaph.

We all have patterns.

Some would say the patterns are inherent, but I'm kind of a fan of free will. I believe we choose the patterns that suit us, within the limitations imposed by heredity and environment.

Doesn't matter for the point I'm making here. What matters is that once you become your own person, what you do, and what is done to you, can be expressed so simply, it can fit on a tombstone.

Take your mother. Someday, if she dies before me, I'm going to make her a bench instead of a headstone. She loves places to sit, and one of her charming idiosyncrasies is that if she's given $1,200.00 to furnish a room, she'll spend $1,100 on a couch and two chairs. Even if the room already has a couch and two chairs.

The bench is going to be hewn by hand from a single slab of the heaviest stone I can find. Because your mother appreciates the hand made. And because whenever we would travel, she managed to find the heaviest, most cumbersome souvenir she could. In San Jose del Cabo it was a pulpit made of timbers that must have originally been used to support the roof of a cathedral. In Mazatlan she found a concrete rain god. When we went to Turkey, we brought back not just two very heavy wool rugs, but probably 50 pounds of glass.

I'm going to place the bench in the most remote, isolated place I can find. Because your mother loved both surprises and helping people. A surprise that would help people would be the best gift she could give for eternity, even if was only a comfortable place to sit in the last place you'd expect to find one.

But what the epitaph goes on, and where the thing the epitaph goes on is placed, are totally distinct from the epitaph itself. It's the difference between style and substance, both of which define a person.

What goes on your mother's bench, out there in the wilds of Patagonia, are the words, "I think I see the trail picking up again."

There's a story behind those words.

Your mother and I once went out to Lake Arrowhead for the weekend with my cousin Shari and some of her friends. One afternoon, we went for a hike.

Actually, it was a walk. Into the woods. With no preparation, no maps, no compasses, no water, no food, and no idea what we'd run into. After a while, the trail started to become a bit, well, thin. We could have turned back, but your mother forged cheerfully ahead.

Hours later, it was too late to turn back. We had no idea where we were and any bare patch of ground might have been the "trail." We were surrounded by trees and brush, with no obvious way to proceed. And it was getting dark.

Your mother shimmied under a fallen tree--one that had clearly been down for decades--shoved her way through a clump of bushes, and disappeared. And that's when I heard her voice, cheerful as ever: "I think I see the trail picking up again."

That, in a sentence, is your mother.

Where others see despair, she sees hope. Where others expect failure, she expects success.

In this case, just like every other case, she was right. When I got under the tree and through the brush, I didn't see a trail. None of us did. But somehow, following her, we managed to get back to the car.

I'm showing off now, but I can give you a couple more examples. Your grandfather's tombstone should say, "As I say." Because if he lives long enough for you to know him, you will discover that what drives him--what absolutely defines him--is his need to be known for knowing.

As for your Uncle Sterling, I can't tell you the epitaph, but I can tell you that the dates will be wrong. And knowing him, he'll probably have four or five graves so that one set of friends won't accidentally run into another set of friends if they happen to decide to pay their respects on the same day.

Your grandmother will have a really nice plot with a lovely view, but she'll be facing the wrong way. And her headstone will say something to the effect of, "See? I knew this was a lousy spot." Twenty years after being buried, she'll be proved right. The cemetery will wash away in a flood or toxic chemicals will be discovered leaching into the soil.

And what about me? I don't really want a headstone, so it's hard to imagine an epitaph. But if there is one, it's probably something really clever, really profound, and not quite complete.

Keep your mind open to change.

This might surprise you. It surprised me. After having been on this planet for more than 45 years, I thought I'd pretty much figured out what I believed in.

My oldest friend is my buddy Carlos from Argentina. We met in 11th grade, which means we've known each other for more than 30 years. And from the beginning, he and I argued, debated, and discussed political philosophy.

Neither one of us ever thought the other would modify his position. And while each of us was convinced the other was wrong, we both knew that our fundamental beliefs were well-considered.

Carlos didn't change my mind. He couldn't have. But a lot of stuff happened during the presidential election of 2008 that did.

I'm not going to go into details because the point here isn't specifically what I believe, but more importantly, that the things I believe--and believed so strongly--changed.

It was hard, but I called Carlos back in November and told him about my "conversion." He was a gentleman about it, and didn't give me too hard of a time.

And that's what a real friend does. But I'll get into that in another section.