“To thine own self be true,” says the great Shakespeare and how can we be true to our own selves if we train with inferiors?  We are known by our companionships.  We will be rated according to association—­good or bad.  The two will not mix for long and we will be one sort of a fellow or the other.  We can’t be both.

There was a time, long years ago, in the days of our grandfathers, when men went to the “bow-wows” and, later on, “came back” as it were, by making a partial success in life—­measured largely by the money they succeeded in accumulating.  That was before the “check-up” system was invented.  Today things are different.  Questions are asked—­“Where were you last?”—­“Why did you leave there?”—­“Have you credentials?”—­and when we shake our weary head and walk away, we fondly wish we had “taken stock” back there when the “taking” was good.

     “To thine own self be true; and it must follow as the night the
     day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

When we can analyze ourselves and find that we are living up to the quoted lines above we may safely lift the limit from our aspirations.  Right here it is well to say that success is not to be computed in dollars and cents, nor that the will to achieve a successful life is to be predicated upon the mere accumulation of wealth.  First of all, good health and good minds—­then we may laugh loud and long—­we’re safe on “first.”

So, with these two weapons we may dig down into our aspirations, and, keeping in view that our policy is that of honesty to ourselves and toward our fellow man, all we need to do is to go about the program of life cheerfully and stout of heart—­for now we are in a state of preparedness.

We are at the point where vision starts.  Along with this vision must come the courage of convictions in order that we may feel that our ideas are important, and because we have such thoughts, we shall surely succeed.  It has often been noticed that when we have had a large conception and have with force, character, and strength of will carried it into effect, immediately thereafter a host of people have been able to say:  “I thought of that myself!” Most of us have had the same experience after reading of a great discovery that we had thrown overboard because it must not have been “worth while” or someone else would already have thought of it.

The man who puts life into an idea is acclaimed a genius, because he does the right thing at the right time.  Therein lies the difference between the genius and a commonplace man.

We all have ambitions, but only the few achieve.  A man thinks of a good thing and says:  “Now if I only had the money I’d put that through.”  The word “if” was a dent in his courage.  With character fully established, his plan well thought out, he had only to go to those in command of capital and it would have been forthcoming.  He had something that capital would cheerfully get behind if he had the courage to back up his claims.  To fail was nothing less than moral cowardice. The will to do had not been efficient.  There was a flaw in the character, after all.