Hold On
I need to re-create myself. A different me for a different season. I've heard this same message said in different ways by different people. Take up a hobby. Learn to bake. Learn to play the piano. Learn to draw. Travel more. Get a pet. Start a project. Volunteer. Be a foster mum. Write a book. Make new friends. Join an exercise class. Give tuition. Read. Watch DVDs.
There - I think I've listed all that I've been told to do.
I know buried in that list is the concern of my friends. Concern from years of friendship and honesty. From knowing there was a happier me. What is lacking is will. Mine.
I re-read an old favorite poem this afternoon because I had the vague memory of a stanza:
"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!"…
I first read that poem in 1978. I was a trainee teacher and in charge of the Drama Club. The tutor overseeing the Drama Club wrote the first lines of that poem in a card to me after we had successfully organized a Drama Nite, saying this was my strength - "you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..". I was intrigued enough to go to the library to look for the rest of the poem.
I think it is possible to keep your head so strong that people forget you can lose it too. I think it is possible to do your job every day every month every year so well, people don't give you permission to mess up. That it is possible to hold on for so long that people think you just need something else to hold on to. You can. If.
I re-read an old favorite poem this afternoon because I had the vague memory of a stanza:
"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!"…
I first read that poem in 1978. I was a trainee teacher and in charge of the Drama Club. The tutor overseeing the Drama Club wrote the first lines of that poem in a card to me after we had successfully organized a Drama Nite, saying this was my strength - "you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..". I was intrigued enough to go to the library to look for the rest of the poem.
I think it is possible to keep your head so strong that people forget you can lose it too. I think it is possible to do your job every day every month every year so well, people don't give you permission to mess up. That it is possible to hold on for so long that people think you just need something else to hold on to. You can. If.
