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An ideal is some desirable thing we seek to achieve. It is always beyond our present attainment, for when we realise , it ceases to be an ideal. Because it is beyond us, and because we desire it, our ideal, whatever it is, us to put forth the effort to reach it—a man who wants to reach the top of a mountain climbs.
Different have different ideals, high and low. An artist has before his mind a standard of excellence in his art and strives reach it; a politician sets himself to reach a position of power and influence; a devout man puts before him a height of saintliness and will never be satisfied till he attains it; a businessman devotes all his energies to making a . In all cases, the ideal a man sets before him determines the sort of life he will live and the sort man he will become, hence the importance of choosing the right ideal.
Many people, however, seem to have no definite ideals life. They are like ships without compasses, sailing to no definite port and blown hither and thither by every wind. They an aimless life, and what they do and become is largely a matter of chance, determined by the circumstances in which happen to be placed. Such people, because they aim at nothing, achieve nothing.
To make anything of life, we must have idea of some sort. A man striving to realise a definite ideal is like a steamship steaming by the compass to known destination. It does not depend on the wind but forges ahead by its innate energy in the teeth of wind wave. But if it is necessary to have an ideal in life, it is of the utmost importance that that ideal be the right one. For the more earnestly we strive after our ideal, the more swiftly shall we realise it, and it is low or wrong, the more swiftly shall we ruin ourselves.