I remember a long time ago, when I was in boy scouts, we had this crazy game we’d play.

It was only when we had these once a year “Jamborees” where hundreds of troops would get together and have all these competitions.

We’d all have our camps set up in this big huge circle around the competition area, which was at least a square mile.

The game was unspoken, but understood by all the different troops. Everybody would take their newest members, and send them out looking for something that didn’t exist.

My favorite was a “left handed bacon stretcher.”

The kids would go from troop to troop, and ask if they had one. The guy who answered the question would say, “No, we don’t, but I’m pretty sure that troop 634 has one.” And that troop would be the furthest away.

Now, the reason I thought this game was so fun was not in conning younger scouts. It was fun because me and my buddy would pretend to BE younger scouts going around asking for the craziest thing, and seeing how far we could push the envelope.

It was pretty fun, at least as kids, to pretend to be the “mark” while all the other guys, at least in our minds, were the “marks.”

Of course, this “game” doesn’t stop once we get older.

It seems that everybody is telling us half truths, and then happily sending us on our way, usually far, far away, so by the time we figure the jig is up, that other guy is long gone.

This partially stems from the fact that few people are comfortable saying, “I don’t know,” so they make up some half baked answer so they don’t feel stupid, and then send you away with only a partial answer.

Another reason this happens is many people are desperate to claim some kind of social status by giving you some convoluted answer, usually having nothing to do with your original question.

Politicians pull this crap all the time. Somebody asks them a question they either can’t answer, or don’t want to answer, so they simply spin it off into something else, which makes them look good, but ignores the original question.

What’s the answer?

Unfortunately, it’s ultimately up to you.

Which means few people will give you the straight dope. Few people will put their own social status aside to help you out.

Few people will tell you how it really is.

It’s up to YOU to take pretty much everything with a grain of salt, and kind of figure it out on your own, from experience.

Most people don’t like to hear this. Most people hate that it’s like this.

But the truth is that once you accept this for what it is, and why it is this way, life can be pretty fun.

Like like my buddy and I when we were kids, you can turn the whole “con” into your own game, where you can get the upper hand.

This will help:

Self Confidence Generator