It’s somewhat counterintuitive, based upon the way the world seems to work, but I choose to believe that most people — individuals, that is — want to do the right thing. I know, but remember, I said “individuals.” When you get two or more people together, all those good intentions can go zooming out the window. (That’s why there’s such a thing as “church politics,” for example.)

Anyway, I live my life by the principle that if I run into someone on the street, he (or she) isn’t there to do me harm, and that if I needed to know the time she (or he) would check his (or her) watch and tell me. On the other hand, if I run into two guys on the street, I assume they’re there to beat me up. But maybe that’s just a hangover from high school.

If you haven’t tried rose-colored glasses, I highly recommend them. Nobody can prove I’m not right about what’s in people’s hearts. And it makes it so much easier to let the little things go, if you can talk yourself into believing that there is no malice behind them. It beats the alternative, which is assuming everyone is out to get you. There’s a medical term for that, so it must be just a psychosis.

The disconnect between individual integrity and groupthink mentality is why politics and government don’t work. We send all these well-intentioned people to Washington because they’ve convinced us they’re going to do the right thing, and then they all get together and come up with wars and taxes and a bad attitude. They forget who they work for, but when the next election comes around, we forget that they forgot, and we send them back to do it all over again.

That doesn’t mean they were lying when they made their promises. They probably couldn’t convince us to vote for them if they didn’t believe themselves what they were telling us. The best intentions are just that: intentions. Sincerity of intention means nothing until it leads to action, but when group mentality takes over, the action is likely to be disappointing.