(PART 9/Principle 2) (excerpts from the book HOw to WIN Friends and INFLUENCE People)
Then the doctor told me this story:
"I have a patient right now whose marriage proved
to be a tragedy. She wanted love, sexual gratification,
children and social prestige, but life blasted all her hopes.
Her husband didn't love her. He refused even to eat
with her and forced her to serve his meals in his
room upstairs.
She had no children, no social standing. She went
insane; and, in her imagination, she divorced her
husband and resumed her maiden name. She now
believes she has married into English aristocracy,
and she insists on being called Lady Smith."
"And as for children, she imagines now that she has
had a new child every night. Each time I call on her
she says: 'Doctor, I had a baby last night.' "
Life once wrecked all her dream ships on the sharp
rocks of reality; but in the sunny, fantasy isles of
insanity, all her barkentines race into port with canvas
billowing and winds singing through the masts.
" Tragic? Oh, I don't know. Her physician said to me:
If I could stretch out my hand and restore her sanity,
I wouldn't do it. She's much happier as she is."
If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance
that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle
you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation
this side of insanity.



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