Your life is your life - don't let it be clubbed into dang submission. There are ways out,
there is a light somewhere, it might not be much light but it beats the darkness. Be on
Be on the watch, the gods will offer you chances. Know them, take them. You can't beat death,
but you can beat death in life, sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the
more lights there will be. You are marvelous, the gods wait to delight. Beware of those
who seek constant crowds, for they are nothing alone. Beware the average man, the average
woman, beware their love. Their love is average, seeks average. They will attempt to destroy
anything that differs from their own. Not being able to create art, they will not understand
art. Stay out of the clutches of mediocrity. Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself.
Change your tone and shape so often, that they can never categorize you. Reinvigorate
yourself and accept what it is, but only on the terms you have invented and reinvented.
Be self taught, and reinvent yourself because you must, it is your life and it's history
and the present belong only to you.
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.
All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. Despite
rejection and the worst odds, and it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you are going to try go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives,
jobs and maybe your mind. Go all the way. It could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days,
it could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail, it could mean division, mockery,
isolation. Isolation is a gift. If you are going to try go all the way, otherwise don't
even start.
You will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire, do it, do it.
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. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting.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 that says to them: ‘Do
it, do it, do it, do it, all the way, all the way!’
Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light, do not go gentle into that good night.