Perhaps it is a lack of thought, a want of analysis.  If that is so in your case, young man, get to thinking.  Instead of comparing yourself with some other man who has more things than you, compare yourself with one who has fewer things than you; or, better still, with one who hasn’t anything at all.  Then you will have a measure for the debt you owe to the two beings who have given and are giving you all you have or will have for a great many years to come.

And this other thing, too:  When you begin to be grateful for these things, by going through some such intellectual process as I have indicated, you will get so much more pleasure out of them than you did before that you will hardly be able to realize that you are the same man.

Indeed, you will not be the same man—­you will be another man, a bigger-hearted, saner-minded, gentler, and manlier man.  You will begin to be the kind of a man you would like to be if you sat down by yourself and went to work to make yourself over again.  And what a wonder you would be if you could make yourself over!  Yes, no doubt!

This final word:  The day must come when you must leave the old home.  When that hour arrives, do not try to tarry.  Go right out into the world.  Do not go mournfully.  Give the little mother a smile of courage, a word of cheer, that will be her guaranty that her boy is going to be a “grand success,” and then—­make good!

You will hardly get away from the old home gate when you will stumble over an obstacle and fall down.  Don’t turn back to the old home to be comforted and helped.  Get up, brush the dust off, forget your bruises, and go ahead.  Go ahead, and look where you are going.

A man who cannot get up when he is knocked down is of no use in the world.

Let the messages that you send back to the old home be joyful—­full of faith.  No matter how hard a time you are having, don’t let “the folks at home” know it.  Besides, you are not having such a hard time, after all.  Hundreds of thousands of other men who have become splendidly successful had a great deal harder time than you are having or ever dreamed of having.  Resolve to live up to what the home which reared you expects of you, and work like mad on that resolve, and you will find that you are becoming all that “the folks at home” expected of you, and a great deal more.

Go back to the old home as often as you can; but be sure that you go back with words of cheer and a story of things done.  “The folks at home”—­especially the mother—­will want to hear all about it.  There may be wars whose high-leaping flames illumine all the heavens; there may be political campaigns on hand where issues of fate are thrilling the nerves of the millions; there may be strange tidings from the council-board of the nations; there may be catastrophes and glories, scourges and blessings, famine or opulence; but any and all of these are of no interest to the mother, compared with what you will have to tell her of your own puny little deeds.