The telling and keeping of secrets is a time honored social tradition. As far back as we have the written word, we find instances of people telling, keeping, and betraying secrets. The telling and keeping of secrets is one of the basic human traits, in fact the recognition that you have portions of your life that you want to keep private and secret from others, (including parents), is one of the milestones in the psychological development of children. From our youth until the day we die, we share secrets with others and are told secrets by others. These secrets range from casual, gossipy secrets to heart-rending life altering secrets. Unfortunately, the rules/guidelines governing the telling and keeping of secrets are unwritten, uncertain, and to some degree contradictory. We have all be told that we should "keep a secret" and "be trustworthy". However, we are rarely (if ever) given meaningful guidelines on what exactly it means to "keep a secret" or "be trustworthy"...much less any guidelines, suggestions, or training on how to accomplish these two goals. On the surface, "keeping a secret", seems to be fairly straight forward. Someone tells you a secret. You keep it. End of story. However, in real life things are often not that clear cut. Everyone has experiences, memories, and feelings they want to keep private or share only with select people. This need to control parts of our personal lives is universal. Equally strong is our need to share experiences, memories, and feelings with other people. These two needs set the stage for the inevitable situation where we have information that we do not want to share with everyone, but that we do want to share with only with a select few. Why do we need to keep secrets? --Not everyone would understand and the information would cause more problems than keeping the secret could cause. --Simply wanting to control facts and information about your life. All of us know this dat if somebdy had told us his/her secrets and asked us not to disclose dat...still we do....still we tell others...and if dat some has forbidden us from telling a particular person,most of us will go and tell dat only person first.....and then justify their deed by saying that they had good intensions.....lolzz....HUMAN BEINGS ARE IMPOSSIBLE :)
