MBOMBELA – For most of us, there are a maximum of four weeks left before 2014’s corporate year has passed. These last four weeks often have us at our wits’ end – last deadlines need to be met, co-workers and clients need to be satisfied and we somehow need to manage to not take the stress out on our loved ones.
Which quotes keep you going when the going gets tough? Sometimes, the inspired thoughts of the wise are the only motivation that you need to get it all done.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but an habit.” – Aristotle
“The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.” – Cicero
“Lets go invent tomorrow rather that worrying about what happened yesterday.” – Steve Jobs
When you find yourself so highly strung that an inspirational quote seems a bit too much, a beautiful poem can do wonders for the soul. Rudyard Kiplings poem, IF, has a way of reminding you what’s important:
“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!”
