KEEP YOUR OWN IDEALS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20187, 26 August 1927, Page 14

KEEP YOUR OWN IDEALS.

We talk very loosoly about " ideals," some of us fatuously and some of us flippantly, according to our error. The very word has had a somewhat strange history, for to the Greeks " ideals" wore the supreme values of life, and to us today almost anything is " ideal," from a marriage to a matchbox. If we make a guess at what the average intelligent person means by his or her ideals we find that some standard of well-being, as the individual man or woman understands wellbeing, is indicated. But wo are so diverse that some of us want to bo adventurous and somo of us want to be safe; some of us want pleasure and somo of us desire some form of beneficial activity, the spending of our powers on something beyond self; some of us want to bo rich and somo of us want to be loved and companioned. Any genuino conception of value, however material the value, may in this sense bo grouped under the heading of " ideals." Wo should acknowledge to ourselves what our conceptions of value are and not pretend that anything less or anything different will do instead. Moralists may say, "Ah, but you should encourage the woman whose ideals stop at beautiful surroundings to understand that beautiful thoughts count for more." But the woman who sincerely appreciates outward beauty will not approach inner beauty by pretending that she enjoys living in a tastelessly furnished villa. If sho must live thoro let her do it good-humouredlj by all means, but let her keep honesty. It is a dangerous thing to go back on any ideal, and it is a false philosophy which tells us to like what wo have if we cannot have what wo like. Thero are people who will try to persuade us away from our ideals either for their own purposes or through mistaken ideas of helping us to bo happier. Some of us who have ideals of companionship, for instance, and who cannot find any significance or solace in tho orthodox social lifo, am often asked to give up comparative solitude, to pull ourselves together, and see if we cannot becoino " good sorts." Now tho world would bo much the poorer without its jolly hail-fellow-well-met people. But we cannot be as they are ! the service wo render our fellow humans is differont; our _ pleasuro is different. Many people experience davs of such dishoartenment that they would abandon the ideal that in some senses and in some directions is a limiting thing, but they cannot. Never think that you can dodgo your ideals. They are. inescapable because they are yourself.