Kids, Make Your Own Beautiful World

"Make a beautiful Bubble of your own."

Some great advice from a great person you may not have heard from: Bryan Caplan. Maybe I like this so much because it fits my world view. Confirmation bias can be a powerful thing, as Caplan would probably tell you. Caplan also wrote "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids," which I used as a primer to my life as a triplet dad. Essentially, raising kids isn't as hard as we sometimes make it. Genetics plays a majority role in whatever they will become. We are more guidance systems directing them on their path rather than leaders bringing them down it. But that is for another time.

The quote comes from an article in which Caplan laments his time as a teenage misanthrope (who wasn’t?). Caplan’s teenage self found the world “dreary, insipid, ugly, boring, wrong, and wicked.” So what did he do? He created a world around him that is beautiful in his eyes.

As Caplan says: “Either fix your world, or get to work and make a beautiful Bubble of your own.”
Truly great advice that I hope to pass along to my children. Life isn’t going to color the world around you in vibrant, pastel colors; you have to tend that garden yourself. And if you one day realize you hate all the flowers around you, you really only have yourself to blame. The good news is that you have the ability to replant your garden.

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