Closing Pandora's Box

University officially started yesterday, not that I had any any lectures to attend. But I woke up and drove myself in for some reason. It was nice seeing the friends who I had not seen all summer and what a long summer it was too. The night before uni started, I sent a message to a friend of mine asking them to send me something nice and long to read in the morning. She sent me the following poem (author unknown):

To realize
The value of a brother / sister
Ask someone
Who doesn't have one.

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam.

To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a still born.

To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother
who has given birth to
A premature baby.

To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one hour:
Ask the lovers who are waiting to Meet.

To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one-second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident...

To realize
The value of one millisecond:
As k the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics

To realize the value of a friend:
Lose one.

Time is so valuable, a message the poem above portrays quite nicely. Sometimes we forget its importance and indulge ourselves in wasting activities the cost of which we rarely feel at the time, but later on we are left wishing we had spend that time a little more wisely. When I read this poem it reminded me of a small speech our Headmaster at High School had given to us a few months before our A-level exams. It contained a simple message but a very valuable one and I thought I’d share it with you.

Though I can’t remember the exact words of what he said, I still remember a gist of the message he was trying to get through to us. “Work hard to such an extent that when the exams come, you will go in and leave the examination room in such a state that you will be content with the effort your put in. If you cut down on the socialising and the partying a little and focus these last few months on your studies and work to the best of your ability then and only then will it stop you from having to say those two dreaded words; if only.”

Being honest to ourselves how many of us are there that have sat an exam or done something after which we had thought ‘if only I had…’. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances are to blame, but in most cases it is only our own fault. I’ll be first to admit, I’m guilty of over-using those two words and because of that I’ve lost out on a lot. But I’ve looked at my mistakes and realised the importance and the gravity of the year ahead. Many of you are starting or have just recently started a new year of study and I hope you too realise the importance of those words so that when the summer comes you can enjoy it without having the thought of bad results ruin it. The guilt doesn’t leave you and you’ll spend countless hours of the day thinking if only. It’s bad enough to cheat others but it’s worse when you cheat yourself. If you can’t be honest to yourself, you can’t be expected to be honest to others.

For everyone that is starting or has started school, college, university or any other type of learning institution I’d like to wish good luck to you all. May this year bring you success in all that you try your hand with.

The email continues:

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty. If you wish to find that which becomes the dividing line between mankind and other biological classifications, it rests not in brain size, dominance, or even emotional capability, but lies in the unique capacity for human beings to reflect on their actions and show regret, what is most certainly the ability to empathize, that gives them their position. All animals understand love and affection, but only man shows the propensity to place himself into the shoes of another life form. Losing this capability, among individuals of this species, reduces them below their much heralded position, and readies the climate for the likely fall of man, the fall from grace.

I’d like to finish this post with a quote I once read somewhere which I think is something we should all remember:

“Success only comes before work in the dictionary”.

(Thank you for sending me the lovely poem bubblegum!x )