Bertrand in chapter 8 discusses what he calls persecution mania which he defines as a recognized form of insanity. He says that that is an exaggerated term for attendancy and people that is not uncommon among someone we would count as normal usually. But it's basically when someone blamed the bad events that are going wrong in their life on "the supposed hostility or unkindness of others." He says that one thing that can lead to this is people assuming that other people don't gossip about them when he says that they should basically assume such as they too gossip about their friends and acquaintances. I'm not sure if I agree with him. Maybe to some degree. However I don't feel like everybody talks about their friends behind their backs. Kind of like how we were discussing that there is a selective group of women that do choose to build other women up rather than tell lies about them and make them look bad. I feel like the same is true for this there are a selective group of people that choose to be an all-around good friend and wouldn't say anything bad behind their friends back. That's not to say that they wouldn't think something about their friends to themselves that they may not be comfortable sharing with that friend. Or that they've never experienced a frustrating time where they thought something bad about their friend to themselves that maybe they didn't truly mean but they were just going through something hard of their own. As for persecution mania I do believe that it occurs; I would say that it's for the most part like he describes it, and the person is just reaching and into thin air, because they can't figure out why else something in their life is happening. Other times it could be that they are just very in tune with their own environment and kind of one with the Galaxy if you will and so they can just feel when something is not right in the bubble, and in those rare occasions there may actually be an outside force that has been meddling in their affairs, which is always a very unfortunate event. Especially when it is someone close to you and the relationship cannot be repaired.
In chapter 9 he talks about the fear of public opinion. I full heartedly agree with him that a great deal of unhappiness especially among young people is caused by this. I try to teach my son to worry more about what he needs to do unless about what other people think about him because the ones that matter will like you the way that you are and the ones that don't, don't matter. I just trying to teach him to "be his own person," as we call it. I can count numerous times throughout his childhood where I heard him say these words "I am my own person." It's very gratifying to a parent at least to me to know that my son is confident but not cocky or arrogant; and that he recognizes himself as a separate entity, with different values and different interests and different outlooks than anyone else.
In chapter 10 Bertrand starts his discussion on what makes people happy as opposed to what makes them unhappy. And attributes the secret to happiness as showing interest and as many things as possible; and simply that whenever possible choose friendliness over hostility. And then he moves into chapters 11 through 17, where he will go into more detail about what makes up a happy person, rather than what makes one unhappy.
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