If you think you are beaten you are.
If you think you dare not, you won't.
If you like to win but don't think you can,
Its almost a cinch that you won't.
If you think you'll loose you're lost.
For out in the world you'll find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in a state of mind.
For many a game is lost
Ere even before a play is run,
And many a coward fails
Ere even his work is begun.
Think big and your deeds will grow;
Think small and you'll fall behind;
Think that you can and you will;
It's all in a state of mind.
If you think you're out classed you are;
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the fellow who thinks he can!
[Anonymous author, passed on to me by my father, years ago.]
Ps if you know the original author, please let me know!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
It's all in a state of mind
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3 comments:
I'm seeing one attribution to Jesse Owens
http://www.cafe151.co.uk/notebook/category/poetry/
Jesse Owens.. as in the runner Jesse Owens I wonder?? Thanks for sending the link, I think it's a little ironic that the bastardization of rudyard kipling's "IF" is right after this one on the page, both were passed to me by my father years back and are still on my fridge today. Just because it is so incredible, I'll post the actual Kipling poem here also:
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 all 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!
--Rudyard Kipling
This is the wisdom my Dad passed onto me, and now I seem to hear it everywhere
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away
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