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You work to
ensure the well-being of those boys who are filled with potential.
Covet your relationship, your
friends and close
family members. Comprehend the genuinely great value of your
relationship. Understand how fragile personal relationships are and
how easily they may be irrevocably damaged. Never under-estimate
how your grand effort and good fortune have conspired concomitantly
to permit you to build a comfortable lifestyle for your family.
Appreciate the successful careers you have worked to achieve. |
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In
the early 1960s,
I and many people had
sympathy for the
Southern Negroes who had fire hoses turned on them while being
chased by German Shepard dogs through their hometown city streets.
I accepted -- as fact -- that, if only they could be provided
with good educations and opportunities to work and live in peace,
Negroes would develop well and honor the opportunity to work hard.
How could they not want to succeed and develop into good Americans?
Certainly they understood their good fortune to have had their
ancestors removed from Africa and bought to the future United States
of America ! |
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Being a
sensitive and caring person, I was proud of the fact that my father,
while VP of Personnel for a large national
drug store chain circa 1948, had hired the
first Negro pharmacist in a major city. |
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In 1979, I
took pride following in my father's footsteps when I hired the first
black consultant for a major accounting firm. |
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And in other
instances of greater import to my personal well-being, I often
considered that most people were about equal in some vague,
gelatinous way and would surely respond to goodness and
opportunity. Obviously. |
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These
distorted, ill-conceived, poorly analyzed concepts I took as
absolute truths. |
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I was wrong.
I was wrong for decades. I was wrong repeatedly over decades. |
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Most people
are not similar to you and me. Our own
actions and
performance testify to that. Most people actually are
very pleased to subsist one day at a time. Most people tend to
migrate downward culturally. Most people have very little desire to
apply themselves and reach for grander plateaus. Most people do not
concern themselves with achieving long term success. |
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Those
are facts. Ignoring these facts will be detrimental to those who
make naive applications of limited resources in order to assist the
unworthy. Applying your limited resources to an endless routine of
giving to unworthy people will impede your
own progress. You will sacrifice your
potential. You may make success your own
illusive, unattainable dream. |
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Do not
over-extend
your resources by allowing
yourself to
bear the burden of others who are destined to fail. It is unlikely
that you and your friends can or will
elevate others. It is more likely that others will dissolve into
your universe, pollute it, and inhibit your abilities to build a
good life. |
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Sincerely,
Peter The Hermit |