Thursday, December 2, 2010

Only You

Tell me you are nervous
Tell me you just can't write the way
I want you to

Tell me English
Doesn't fit the way you are
You're too uptight to write
Too scared that what you put on paper
Won't be what I want

Tell me your life has made you
Into a gelatinous mass
Unable to make it through
A tough, tough world

I know better

It isn't the world that holds you back
It isn't my lofty expectations
It isn't that the demands of life are simply too much to bear

The world is not against you
The world wants nothing more than your success

Your enemy is you

But, by all means,
Go on telling yourself you can't do it
Despite all that I might say or do
Call yourself a failure
Say that you can't do it
Over and over and over
Until you believe it

And in the end
You'll be right
And I'll be wrong

But the world
And I
Will be oh so disappointed
For you will have given up
On yourself.

5 comments:

  1. I had this same sort of discussion last night with a TA in Chemistry and how by the semesters end she asked a woman who started the class telling her that she would never be able to pass and ended it with the stunned look when the TA asked how many other things she told herself she could not do.

    Apparently the woman, older, unsure if she belonged in school or not, scored a well earned 3.2 for a class she was sure she would never understand.

    Now after failing algebra (101) 2x's and dropping it 4 I may be ready to try it again. ha ha ha ha No I don't think so. I think that bar can stay way the hell up there beyond my grasp because I have to have something to laugh at myself about.

    But I honestly understood what you were saying here Shakes and it is to true for a lot of people who think so much less of themselves that is contradicted by the reality of their life.

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  2. standing
    within shadows
    I take a final step
    to break away out of my gloom
    daybreak

    _m

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  3. sometimes all it takes is believing in yourself so that you may succeed in something. hope all is well.

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  4. Not such a rare outlook.

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