Encourage yourself....

Yes, this is not the usual hour I am still up and writing... actually, alot of things have gone awry, but the bigger issues of packing and moving must still go on. I am halfway or nearly halfway in packing and clearing.... it is a heart-breaking time, but I must move on... I am halfway; must hang on... 4 to 5 more weeks and alot will be left behind. At least physically.

The thing about 'holiday' (the reason why the word is in quote mark is actually for some reason or other, work doesnt seem to end for me...and yes, I DO resent it by now,) is, you dont meet people. So basically, I 'talk' to myself alot, and writing becomes my main companion, apart from my cats...

I need to encourage myself. The poem below by Rudyard Kipling, I gave each 403(2009) a copy, but I doubt very much any of them thought much of it. As a literature student, I did a detailed analysis of the poem, but knew then, that there were depths of meaning I did not apprehend. This poem came back to me again and again through different phases of life, and pondered at the poet's immense wisdom and understanding of life and nature of man.

Dear friends, like me, some time in life, you will find that being a Man, worth the name, is not easy. This poem directs with alot of sublime wisdom....
=======================================================

If
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 imposters 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 wornout 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 breath 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!