This one is simple… To all of my clients, to all of my friends and family and to everyone who is finding things just a little bit harder than normal.
On the evening that I heard my mum had cancer, although they did not know how bad it was, I knew that she was going to leave us. I walked in to the garden and cried, cried with deep despair. What would I do without my mum to turn to, who else could know me as well as she did. I sat on the bench and let my tears come, I sobbed. After a moment or two I opened my eyes, still looking at the floor, my tears blurring my vision. On the old flag between my feet there were a series of scratches that resembled two letters…. IF.
Later when I had calmed down, I opened google and typed it in. It was top of the first page.I share it with you now, in the hope that my mum’s final message to me, may inspire you to get up! Live your life with gratitude and thankfulness, to make every second count and most of all……Be Happy!
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 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:
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,
‘ 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!
Rudyard Kipling
