youth

Youth is not a time of life – it is a state of mind,
it is a temper of the will,
a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions,
a predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.
People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
Years wrinkle the skin,
but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, doubt, self-distrust,
fear and despair – these are the long,
long years that bow the head and
turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether they are sixteen or seventy,
there is in every being’s heart
the love of wonder,
the sweet amazement at the stars
and starlike things and thoughts,
the undaunted challenge of events,
the unfailing childlike appetite
for what is to come next,
and the joy and the game of life.

You are as young as your faith,
as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence,
as old as your fear,
as young as your hope,
as old as your despair.
When the wires are all down
and all the innermost core of your heart
is covered with the snows of pessimism
and the ice of cynicism,
then you are grown old indeed.

But so long as your heart receives messages
of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur
and power from the earth,
from man and from the Infinite,
so long you are young.

~ Samuel Ullman

It’s been a frustrating week at work. You know the situation. You can see things so clearly. You can see the problems yes, but most importantly you can see the solutions, the opportunities and the successes that this could bring in the end. The long game.

The trouble is that people get hung up on how to take the first step, bogged down in the detail of the smallest move. Perhaps they’re worried about the scale of the change that’s needed, perhaps the incessant worrying about the first move is the equivalent of the security blanket.

In other news life moves fast — didn’t get the promotion I went for — Joe’s been playing rugby at school — gave presentation on climate change to CIOB in York — delivered strategy paper — Good friend’s Luke & Dom got joint first in professional category at WTT awards bash (Well done! You deserve it old boy) — Photographed another wedding — Have photos up in Salisbury Waterstones until end of October — Caught fish

Still, onwards and upwards – as the poem puts so well ‘to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul’.

Malcolm

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 15th, 2011 at 9:57 pm. It is filed under The Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.