Why Private Lives shouldn't be Public

The private lives of important people are often considered a yardstick of their professional abilities. Perhaps it’s based on the thought, that what we do to the people we love most (including ourselves) when we believe no one else will judge us or see– are the clearest windows into our character, our morals and our values. Yet, what makes news is not the success of our marriages, our roles as friends, spouses or children – but our failures in those roles. When private lives become public and the imperfections of our private decisions come into the spot-light, they stand alone, out of context and no longer balanced by the rights in our lives. They are just glaring failures of us, not as entrepreneurs or businessmen or politicians, but as men and women. Why would anyone ever like that person, much less vote for that person? Private failures belong to the people they happened to, and are not to be judged by the world at large. Those failures - they didn’t happen to the world.