CHARACTER is PREPARATION for the STORMS of LIFE!

Rain falls on the just and unjust.
Troubles hit you. Some financial. Some personal.
How do you keep trials and troubles from your door? You can’t.
In the end it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it that matters.
We all need to hear this – Read it again!
Here is Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem:
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 imposters 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 wornout 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 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!
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I love this poem because it shows the conflicts we all face.
Do we succumb to the pressures of the world to be like everyone else and suppress our inner voice – or hold on to those things that will last – long after the shiny objects are gone (even though that will demand the most from us)?
When it comes to raising children many look the other way and avoid the ordeal altogether. Or let things slide and come what may. But when it comes down to it, we are all raising ourselves. If we choose rightly, and do the best we can, then after the strenuous labors and battles are done – we’ll come through the other side to find we have grown in wisdom and inner strength.
…IF we can hold our heads, that is!
IF character is defined as “what you are when no one is watching”, we must have a space within to return to that is untouched by the storms of life. The eye of the hurricane. The apex of the pendulum that is steady while the weight of the world’s extremes swings below it. Hold on and don’t let go!
Take the time to find it if you haven’t already.
See you on the inside!
Ruth Elliott-Hilsdon
Co-Founder, EDU DESIGNS
Investing in the child in all of us.
Edu Designs is making a difference.
Ruth enjoys sharing ideas to help busy people with the challenges of raising themselves to be productive and positive people! An Emmy Award winning animation artist, author and illustrator, she gives parents tools for positive behavior in kids through her site GoMommyGo.com, and inspires creativity and character development through Edu Designs, the non profit organization she co-founded. Check them out!