You must prepare for the time of need, the time of trouble, and generally look ahead of you, and you can do this only by not wasting your present time of action. There will come a period when time shall be no more; when you will look back and sigh over wasted moments. Take time to be cheerful, for amusement, for pleasure, of course. Such things are good for the soul and body, and the time is not wasted when they are reasonable and decent. DON’T DECEIVE YOURSELF The man who shuts his eyes deliberately and walks toward a deep hole into which he falls, is a fool and does not deserve sympathy or help. But the man who deliberately deceives himself and uses false arguments to bolster up some bad habit, or shady dealing with his fellow men, is working dead against his conscience, and drifting down deep in the human scale. He is an object of contempt. You get the better of a man by some trick and say to yourself: “Oh, he would have done the same thing to me.” So you measure yourself by others? This is not an assertion of manhood, it is a slavish subjection to others mentally. When a man goes wrong, or commits a wrong act, and deceives himself into the belief that he was right, he commits moral suicide, just the same as if he killed himself. There is another point of view to this question: If you could deceive yourself and let it go at that, there might be no harm done except to your own self-respect, but in deceiving yourself you deceive others into the belief that you are honest and square. Whereas, you are a hypocrite. Others will find you out very soon, and then you may as well shut up shop, for all the business and trust you will get. A man who is square with himself will be true to everybody else. This makes for character, and character is all a man has on this earth; once lost it can never be regained. You see, there are too many people on earth to deal with. You are not the only one, and so your disappearance will not make even a small ripple. Be a man among other men, and be true to yourself, for so you will gain the respect and good will of all. DON’T HIDE YOUR FAULTS Confession is good for the soul. This does not mean that you are to go about and tell everybody what a bad man you are. If you do that, they will soon begin to believe you and keep away from you. Where there is smoke there is always some kind of a fire. When you are wrong, say so without hesitation. Nobody is perfect, and all men have their faults. In the business world every man wants to know every other man, then it will be safe to do business with him. But you can not know another without knowing his faults. Concealment of one’s frailties is dangerous, and leads to harm if you are found out, and you are always found out. You are a suspicious character, and sometimes suspicions are “as strong as proofs of Holy Writ.”