Elora Gorge Waterfall

Elora Gorge Waterfall
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Sometimes you have to push yourself
It enables you to find your boundaries, your limits.
I doubted myself.
In the face of an upcoming challenge I had doubts ...
Could I ?
Would I ?
What if ?
As it turns out the challenge was / is far less than I imagined.
The thought of failure is harder to face than the failure itself.
Still I had to prove to myself that I was/am up for the challenge.
Oh I am tired and sore but I have banished those demons that haunted these last few days.
Some will laugh and call me silly or daft, stupid even but once those niggling doubts are allowed to take root they are worse than weeds.
I gave myself the strength to face them and in the facing they withered away.

This reminded me of a poem ...

.. by Ruyard Kipling

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 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 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 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