March 13th 2019
I’m sure that many of us – particularly this week as a community and country – are wondering what next in the light of our political and social alliance with Europe is being tested yet, we balance this concern with an awareness of the many good things that the majority of our worthy representatives attempt to do daily on our behalves – for me, the below by Rudyard Kipling (slightly amended) has come to mind.
In short, I’m sure we’ve all been tested to our cores at some point(s) in our lives and can appreciate the bravery and will to carry on despite what may have appeared to be the overwhelming odds against us and somehow, someway, the outcome wasn’t a failure but, upon reflection, a success.
I would like to hope that the outcome of this time will not divide us but perhaps serve to embrace us more.
Marie
IF – Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs
and blaming it all on you,
If you can trust yourself when all around you doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by this waiting,
nor of being lied about, and yet not deal in lies,
and by being hated and not give way to this hating,
but 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 those 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,
And walk on high – but not lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all can 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 – what is more – you’ll have arrived my friend,
In fact, you will have won!