In many circumstances in life, false encouragement can be very costly to another person. Imagine that you have a friend who has spent years striving unsuccessfully to build a career as an actor. Many fine actors struggle in this way, of course, but in your friend’s case the reason seems self-evident: He is a terrible actor. In fact, you know that his other friends—and even his parents—share this opinion but cannot bring themselves to express it. What do you say the next time he complains about his stalled career? Do you encourage him to “just keep at it”? False encouragement is a kind of
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