Master of human destinies am I;
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait.
Cities and fields I walk. I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
Temples he built and palaces of air,
And, with the artist’s parent-pride aglow,
His fancy saw his vague ideals grow
Into creations marvellously fair;
He set his foot upon Fame’s nether stair.
But ah, his dream,—it had entranced him so
He could not move. He could no farther go;
But paused in joy that he was even there!
The mountains that enfold the vale
With walls of granite, steep and high,
Invite the fearless foot to scale
Their stairway toward the sky.
The restless, deep, dividing sea
That flows and foams from shore to shore,
Calls to its sunburned chivalry,
“Push out, set sail, explore!”
Can’t is the worst word that’s written or spoken;
Doing more harm here than slander and lies;
On it is many a strong spirit broken,
And with it many a good purpose dies.
It springs from the lips of the thoughtless each morning
And robs us of courage we need through the day:
It rings in our ears like a timely-sent warning
And laughs when we falter and fall by the way.
It was a noble Roman,
In Rome’s imperial day,
Who heard a coward croaker,
Before the castle say,
“They’re safe in such a fortress;
There is no way to shake it!”
“On! On!” exclaimed the hero,
“I’ll find a way, or make it!”
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
There’s a thousand “Can’t-be-done-ers”
For the one who says “It can!”
But the whole amount of deeds that count
Is done by the latter clan.
For the “Can’t-be-done-ers” grumble,
And hamper, oppose and doubt,
While the daring man who says “It can!”
Proceeds to work it out.
When you get to know a fellow, know his joys and know his cares,
When you’ve come to understand him and the burdens that he bears,
When you’ve learned the fight he’s making and the troubles in his way,
Then you find that he is different than you thought him yesterday.
You find his faults are trivial and there’s not so much to blame
In the brother that you jeered at when you only knew his name.
You are quick to see the blemish in the distant neighbor’s style,
You can point to all his errors and may sneer at him the while,
And your prejudices fatten and your hates more violent grow
As you talk about the failures of the man you do not know,
But when drawn a little closer, and your hands and shoulders touch,
You find the traits you hated really don’t amount to much.
If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and
your sleep for it
If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry
and cheap for it
If you strike a thorn or rose,
Keep a-goin’!
If it hails or if it snows,
Keep a-goin’!
‘Taint no use to sit an’ whine
When the fish ain’t on your line;
Bait your hook an’ keep a-tryin’–
Keep a-goin’!
When the weather kills your crop,
Keep a-goin’!
Though ’tis work to reach the top,
Keep a-goin’!
As of today, I hope I leave you with a direction correction
away from the flaws you see in our reflection.
They aren’t flaws to me they are simply protection
So start today, take a good long look in the mirror and say
‘I am who I’ve been looking for’
You are who you’ve been looking for.
So stop looking for more unless you are looking in the mirror
because it is about time for you to see clearly that:
You are who you’ve been looking for.
And that empty feeling you got,
that hole in your chest
you only got that feeling because you think you are not blessed
with everything you need.
You see we live in a consumerist society
which means they need you to buy stuff
and the easiest way to sell it is to tell you
How long does it take to learn?
To bait a hook with a wiggly worm,
To make a bed, to wash a plate,
To swim, to dive to figure skate,
To iron a shirt to mend a seam,
To walk with balance on a beam?
How do you think grown-ups know?
It’s great to be alive, and be
—A part of all that’s going on;
To live and work and feel and see
—Life lived each day from early dawn;
To rise and with the morning light
—Go forth until the hours grow late,
Then joyously return at night
—And rest from honest toil—it’s great!
It’s great to be a living part
—Of all the surging world alive,
And lend a hand in field and mart,
—A worker in this human hive;
To live and earn and dare to do,
—Nor ever shirk or deviate
From course or purpose we pursue!
—Until the goal is won—it’s great!
You think that the failures are many,
You think the successes are few,
But you judge by the rule of the penny,
And not by the good that men do.
You judge men by standards of treasure
That merely obtain upon earth,
When the brother you’re snubbing may measure
Full-length to God’s standard of worth.
The failures are not in the ditches,
The failures are not in the ranks,
They have missed the acquirement of riches,
Their fortunes are not in the banks.
Their virtues are never paraded,
Their worth is not always in view,
But they’re fighting their battles unaided,
And fighting them honestly, too.
Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400.
It carries over no balance from day to day.
Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.
What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!
Each of us has such a bank. It’s name is TIME.
Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.
Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose.
It carries over no balance.
It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you.
Each night it burns the remains of the day.
If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.
There is no going back. There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”.
You must live in the present on today’s deposits.
Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!
The clock is running. Make the most of today.