When a man gets up it is possible for him to stay up by hard work and persistence, but if he permits himself to go down below his balance he may consider himself altogether down-and-out. Failure does not mean that you will not succeed, because struggle as we may we must meet failure and look it squarely in the face. But be not afraid of it, take hold of it by the throat and compel it to work to your advantage. The lessons learned during the struggle toward success, and the ups and downs of the road are valuable and stand for experience. When a driver has gone over a hard road once, he knows the rocky portions and can avoid them when going over it again. It is human to make mistakes. In fact, it is a maxim: “It is human to err.” Knowing this to be inevitable, why repine, or be discouraged? Follow the example of the small child who falls and picks himself up over and over again. By and by, he can walk without falling down. Remember this: Every dark cloud has a silver lining. You see the dark side, but if you make your way around to the other side you will see the sun shining. Much of the discouragement is caused by undertaking more than we can accomplish. If that is the case, then by leaving off a little here and there we shall soon reduce our enterprise to a success that we can handle. DON’T BE PREJUDICED We sometimes dislike a man, or hate him, which is the same thing, because he possesses certain peculiarities of person or conduct which are different from ours, or has ideas that are different from those we favor. The man may be a perfect stranger to us, and we may know nothing about his environments or conditions under which he lives, or the reasons why he differs from us—we hate him all the same and take the other side of the street rather than meet him face to face. If we were to look into ourselves we might believe that this man we dislike, has many reasons for not liking us. We show prejudice when we judge any man. “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” says Christ. You are not the judge of any man’s conduct, and to judge him entails slander, backbiting, and conspiracies to his undoing. You throw mud at another man. Why? Is it not because you have some spots yourself and want to draw attention away from them? You are afraid that if you boost the other man up you will lower yourself. Hence you unload upon him some of your objectionable qualities to lighten your load. Every man who does this admits that the other man is better than he, and hopes by adding his faults to that other man, to reduce the level to somewhere near a balance. But experience demonstrates the contrary. Even if a man should be as bad as you say he is, it is not your business to correct him. You can not extract the fangs of a rattlesnake by abusing him. Look out for your own destinies and leave the judgment of your fellow man to the judgment seat of God, where it belongs. DON’T BE SMALL MINDED