The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[alpha femme]

If

If you can keep your head when all about you,
men are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowances for their doubting, too.
If you can wait, but not be tired of 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 them 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 to hold on when there is nothing in you,
but the will that 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 60 seconds worth of distance run.
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and which is more, you will have Won.

--Rudyard Kipling

[Janae]

Good one.... but I was expecting....

If a picture paints a thousna words, then why can't I paint you?
The words will never show, the you I've come to know;
And if a face could launch a thousand ships-
Then where am I to go?
There's no one home but you; You're all that's left me to...

[wildtrk]

Or as my grandfather used to say...

If if's and and's were pots and pans there would be no need for a tinker.

But Kipling works well in this case.

However my favorite is Frost.

The Road not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, 1920

[lan]

I have enjoyed this strand so much. Thank you for sharing poetry that is important to you. I will share with you one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy this by Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet--

On Giving
Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."
And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;

And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving

And is there aught you would withhold?

All you have shall some day be given;

Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;

For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.