You have to know what people have been through to understand what people want and what they don't want. That's the nub of it. And what people have been through is what we call history.

Read books. Try to understand the reason why things happen, why they are as they are. If you see only the surface phenomena, then the world becomes extremely confusing, ever more unsettling. But if the reasons are understood there's a kind of simplicity that emerges.

Take an interest in people. Get to know people. Get to know what they've been through before you pass judgment. That's essential.

The core of such a program, I suggest, should be history, for the specific and realistic reason that all problems have histories and the wisest route to a successful solution to nearly any problem begins with understanding its history. Indeed, almost any attempt to solve a problem without an understanding of its history is to court failure--as example our tragic plunge into Vietnam with hardly a notion of its past.