IF........

I love this poem.....

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk to wise;

If you can dream---- and not make dreams your master
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the thing you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your oss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virture,
Or walk with Kings---not lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds' worth of distance run---
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
(And---which is more -- you'll be a Hem/Onc Mom.)

by Rudyard Kipling

I love this poem. My dad would read lots of poems to me and this was one of them. He read me things like Gungadin and the Charge of the Light brigade. I began to understand how important it was to read poems out loud when IAC teaching. I loves the cadence and the rhyme and predictability of the verse. I love the words and the messages and the great endings. Poet's seems to be able to wrap it up with a good point.

This seems to say it all at this point, especially the part about filling a minute with sixty second's effort. We have been many days where we need to give that kind of effort. But it is not days of effort, it is moments of great intense effort, concentration and sacrifice. Our life is sort of like a baseball game. It takes a long time to play out. Lots of waiting, lots of standing around and then the big play comes and everything begins to move and before you know it, it is over.

If....... it can be a good thing or a bad thing. It can be the start of a positive thought or action. If I do the my laundry now, I will not run out of clean underwear: or the flip side: If I had only done my laundry I would not be out of underwear. I am going for the former and not the latter.