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   %HARMFUL DISINTEGRATIVE GIFTS HELP ENCOURAGEMENT 890515

     Gifts  can encourage people to behave in  ways  which
are not helpful, and are instead disintegrative.

     People  who  do  not take proper care  of  themselves
often  become dependent upon others who give  compensatory
gifts  to help the irresponsible people to survive without
honestly  learning  the lessons to be learned  from  their
mistakes.   In  the  absence of an honest  and  charitable
confrontation regarding their failure to learn from  their
own  mistakes,  compensatory gifts are more likely  to  be
harmful than helpful.

     People  need to be left free to learn from their  own
mistakes,  and need to be encouraged to be open and honest
about  their  own mistakes and the experiences which  flow
from their having made mistakes.  Pretending that mistakes
have not been made makes it impossible to learn from them.
It is not helpful to encourage people to pretend that they
have  not  made  mistakes  so as  to  appear  perfect  and
acceptable.

     It  is harmful to encourage people to try to be  more
perfect   than   is  possible  for  them  to   be.    Such
encouragement leads them to pretend to be more perfect and
free  of mistakes than they are,  and to pretend that they
do  not  make mistakes,  so they do not learn  from  their
mistakes.  Giving such people help to compensate for their
failure  to be open and honest about their  mistakes  does
not  help them to learn from their mistakes.  Such  giving
may be dishonest compensation for the communal mistake  of
teaching them to try to be perfect.

     People should be taught to learn from their mistakes.
People  should  not be taught to try to be perfect.   Only
fools  think that they can be perfect or  become  perfect.
Wise  people are open and honest about their own  mistakes
and what they have learned from their own mistakes.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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