21. FLOURISH AND PROSPER

Sometimes others seek to crush one down, to make nothing out of one’s hopes and dreams, one’s future and oneself.

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By ridicule and many other means, another who is evil-intentioned toward one can try to bring about one’s decline.

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For whatever reason, efforts to improve oneself, to become happier in life, can become the subject of attacks.

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It is sometimes necessary to handle such directly. But there is a long-range handling that seldom fails.

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What, exactly, are such people trying to do to one? They are trying to reduce one downward.

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They must conceive that one is dangerous to them in some way: that if one got up in the world, one could be a menace to them. So, in various ways, such seek to depress one’s talents and capabilities.

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Some madmen even have a general plan that goes like this: “If A becomes more successful, A could be a menace to me; therefore I must do all I can to make A less successful.” It never seems to occur to such that their actions might make an enemy out of A even though he was no enemy before. It can be classed as an almost certain way for such madmen to get into trouble. Some do it just from prejudice or because they “don’t like someone.”

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But however it is attempted, the real object of such is to make their target grow less and fail in life.

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The real handling of such a situation and such people, the real way to defeat them is to flourish and prosper.

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Oh, yes, it is true that such people, seeing one improve his lot, can become frantic and attack all the harder. The thing to do is handle them if one must but don’t give up flourishing and prospering, for that is what such people want you to do.

If you flourish and prosper more and more, such people go into apathy about it: they can give it up completely.

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If one’s aims in life are worthwhile, if one carries them out with some attention to the precepts in this book, if one flourishes and prospers, one certainly will wind up the victor. And, hopefully, without harming a single hair on their heads.

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And that is my wish for you: flourish and prosper!

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1. flourish: to be in a state of activity and production; expanding in influence; thriving; visibly doing well.

2. prosper: to achieve economic success; succeeding at what one does.

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