Reference: The Happiness Rundown
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 one, himself.
By ridicule and many other means, another who is evil-intentioned toward one can try to bring about one’s decline.
For whatever reason, efforts to improve oneself, to become happier in life, can become the subject of attacks.
It is sometimes necessary to handle such directly. But there is a long-range handling that seldom fails.
What, exactly, are such people trying to do to one? They are trying to reduce one downward. 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.
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.”
But however it is attempted, the real object of such is to make their target grow less and fail in life.
The real handling of such a situation and such people, the real way to defeat them, is to flourish and prosper.
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.
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.
And that is my wish for you: flourish and prosper!
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Exercise
0. Make sure you have completed the exercise section at Happiness: Precept 20. Study the precept above.
1. Check the responses to the following questions for false data (see false data steps at Happiness: Prologue).
(a) “Have you been told or taught not to flourish and prosper?”
(b) “Do you have any rules or ideas contrary to flourishing and prospering?”
(c) “Have you been led to believe that you shouldn’t flourish and prosper?”
(d) “Do you know of anything that conflicts with flourishing and prospering?”
(e) “Do you have any false data about flourishing and prospering?”
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2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers:
(a) “How have others transgressed against the precept: ‘Flourish and prosper’?”
(b) “How have you transgressed against the precept: ‘Flourish and prosper?”
Do a quick review to see if you did not miss any answers on this step. You should be feeling good about this step.
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3. See if the following question definitely brings up some name you know of:
“Is there any specific person in your past who really transgressed against the precept: ‘Flourish and prosper’?”
If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:
“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”
If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.
“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?”
“Is there any time when you decided that not flourishing and prospering was a good thing?”
“Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers)
“Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
“Are there any similarities between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
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4. Handle any anomalies that come up on the following question by looking at the anomaly more closely.
”Do you have any reservations about flourishing and prospering?”
If the anomaly does not resolve then review the precept as well as all the exercise steps above to see if anything was missed. Then do step 4 again. When there is no anomaly go to step 5.
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5. Contemplate on the following question.
“Do you have any reservations about getting someone else to flourish and prosper?”
If any reservation comes up, then consider the following:
“How would that be a problem?”
Get answers to this question until there are no reservations.
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