Most of you may not realize this, but I graduated first in my class. Right out of school, I was offered a position to head NASA's Space program but I turned it down because it had been my life long dream to write shell scripts and makefiles at a small software company. I wasn't about to give all that up in spite of the hand-written letter from President Bush.

You buying any of this? If so, you may suffering from gullibility.

Gullibility

I'm sad to say, but sadly it's true,
People will lie and take advantage of you.

They'll sell you land, to plots they don't own.
They'll call you at night on the sell-a-phone.

You'll buy your clothes off the rack, half off it will say.
Half off the price, that was tripled last May.

They'll bait and they'll switch, they'll court you with ads.
You'll shop till you drop, a sucker for fads.

I'm sad to say, but sadly it's true,
I find myself, in the same boat as you.

I guess I first realized my own gullibility the day I traded my lunch money to a fellow for a piece of "petrified wood". It turned out that the petrified wood was just a piece of bark with alot of sap on it. Until that day, it had never occurred to me that someone might actually lie to me. It could have been worse, I was willing to bid much higher for the petrified wood.

Gullibility is a symptom of a trusting nature. Gullible people are generally trustworthy themselves. They see things as they should be, not as they truly are. This makes them especially easy marks whether it's as the butt of a joke in need of a punchline, or the hype of a salesman in need of a hefty commission.

There are a few tests you can perform to figure out someone's gullibility factor. For example, indicate that your victim has a spot on his or her shirt pointing at the shirt with your index finger. If they look down, move your index finger upward until it strikes them in the nose. If you can get away with this gag for more than 2 days in a row, you can rest assured, they're gullible.

In an ideal world, gullibility would be a virtue. My wife is a bit gullible. She is a very good person who implicitly trusts people by default. It's one of her qualities that I most admire.

But sadly, this isn't utopia, we live in reality (well most of us anyway). In reality, gullibility a weakness. I guess the flip side of this would be paranoia. I'll take gullibility over paranoia any day of the week.

Oh, just in case you are one of the truly gullible, let me clarify the first paragraph. It's all a lie. I was making a point, not stating a fact. If I hadn't clarified that, I'm sure that someone somewhere would have left thinking "Wow, he graduated first in his class and turned down NASA!!".