Jeffrey M. Schwartz M.D. recalls the awe with which he used to view his Uncle Aaron, a man whom he describes as a “charming con man and bunko artist.” On Jeffrey’s sixteenth birthday, Uncle Aaron took him aside to offer him a piece of advice. Listen closely, he said. This was really important stuff. And here is the advice that Uncle Aaron gave him:<\/p>\n
If you find a friend
\n That’s true and blue,
\n Make sure you [cheat] him,
\n Before he [cheats] you.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey reports that he felt like he’d been “suckerpunched.” His uncle was completely serious. It was the best advice he could give for facing the challenges of the world.<\/p>\n
____________<\/p>\n
Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., with Annie Gottlieb and Patrick Buckley. A Return to Innocence (New York: ReganBooks, 1998), p. 10.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #4518]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jeffrey M. Schwartz M.D. recalls the awe with which he used to view his Uncle Aaron, a man whom he describes as a “charming con man and bunko artist.” On Jeffrey’s sixteenth birthday, Uncle Aaron took him aside to offer him a piece of advice. Listen closely, he said. This was really important stuff. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1786,1719,1784,1785,1787,481],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}