All Week long as I drove the streets of Nassau, the word Inspire keep't coming to my mind.
H'mm Inspiration, what Inspires me, we that would be a pretty long list. I get inspiration from a number of sources. People often inspire me, how we are so resilient, how we can fall down and get right back up, how often times what hurts us makes us stronger and so many have used their pain to bring so much beauty into our lives.
I am inspired by Nature and in all the form nature expresses her self, in a tree, sunset, sunrise a shell, a rock and in us.
If we look there are so many avenues of Inspiration, a smile can inspire and gladden some down trodden soul, we never know how just one word can inspire some one.
I am also inspired by the written word, poems for example, some times they come to me in a flash and guess what some times when I feel down I would go back and read one of my own poems and be inspired all over again.
My Uncle Anthony "Tony" Roker was often my inspiration and quoted the poem below to me word for word and with a flair that was , well just Uncle Tony. Love you much Uncle and thanks for all your input into my life. Until we meet again.
So enjoy this poem by Rudyard Kipling entitled:
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 these 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!