I would like to dedicate this post to all the graduates of 2008, especially to my sister, Lindsay Joy, who graduated today.

Sa Mahal Kong Kapatid,

Congratulations! You made it! I’m sure your mind is filled with memories and reflective thoughts as you close a chapter of your life.

Graduation is not only the end of a chapter. More importantly, it symbolizes the first step in your next journey. And as you begin your next adventure, I would like to share with you these two poems and six pictures that have guided me in this game we call Life.

The first poem is entitled, “The Wage” by Jessie B Rittenhouse

I bargained with Life for a penny,
  And Life would pay no more.
However I begged at evening
  When I counted my scanty store.

For Life is a just employer,
  He gives you what you ask,
But once you have a set the wages,
  Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire
  Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
  Life would have paid.

You deserve every good thing that our world has to offer. Claim your share of happiness, relationships, health, abundance, prosperity in your life here on Earth. Here are five pictures that can remind us of just how magnificent our infinite universe is:

Here’s the second poem. It’s entitled “If” and it was written by Rudyard Kipling.

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!

Speaking of If, here’s another “If” that would be good to keep in mind:

Congratulations again! I wish you all the best. I love you.

Love,

Kuya

===

Sources:

The Door of Dreams, Jessie Belle Rittenhouse, Houghton Mifflin Company, USA, 1918.

Scale of the Solar System, www.livephysics.com

IF by Rudyard Kipling, www.kipling.org.uk

If it’s not on, it’s not on. Commonwealth Dept of Human Health and Services, Australia.

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