When I was 10, I used to work in my Dad’s Shop after school. At 4pm every day I would head to the shop and serve customers until tea time. It was an old style shop. We sold everything from groceries to coats, boots, shovels, tacks and nails. We sold souvenirs to tourists. Shamrock ☘️ tablecloths leprechaun table maps. There was one tablecloth hanging from the rafters that was never sold. It was white with a blue border. On it were the words of the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. It was my Grandfather’s favourite poem. I would recite it myself in those quiet days. Even today, decades later, I tightened up inside when I read these words. I offer these to you today in the hope some of these words inspire you as much as they have always inspired me.
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
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 lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too 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 things 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 winnings
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 loss;
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 virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor 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!
#peace #love #humanity #growth #struggle #frustration #believe #selfmade #inspiration #opportunity