You know how there are some words, phrases, poems that strike a particular chord within your heart? Sometimes you learn of them in childhood, the teenage years, and they just happen to move you.
Today my first born will attend his final day of highschool. Forever.
I have been blubbering all morning.
I am so proud of him and am more often now getting glimpses of the man he will become.
Zane, this is one of "my" poems - a Kipling poem that has been with me since my teen years.
And today, as you take your final steps in school and take your first steps into the rest of your life, I think of you and the man you will be.
IF you can keep your head when all about you If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can make one heap of all your winnings If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
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 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:
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!'
' 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!
