X. It is important to understand. You’re Worth It.

Do not undermine your worth

by comparing yourself with others.

It is because we are different

that each of us is special.

Do not set your goals

by what other people deem important.

Only you know

what is best for you.

Do not take for granted

the things closest to your heart.

Cling to them as you would your life,

for without them, life is meaningless.

Do not let your life slip through your fingers

by living in the past not for the future.

By living your life one day at a time,

you live all the days of your life.

Do not give up when you still have something to give.

Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

It is a fragile thread that binds us to each other.

Do not be afraid to encounter risks.

It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Do not shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find.

The quickest way to receive love is to give love.

The fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly.

Do not dismiss your dreams.

To be without dreams is to be without hope;

to be without hope is to be without purpose.

Do not run through life so fast

that you forget not only where you have been,

but also you are going.

Life is not a race,

but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

Good Timber

Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease,

The stronger wind, the stronger trees,

The further sky, the greater length,

The more the storm the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thicket lies the forest growth

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.

Vocabulary:

scrubby – miserable, unimportant

toil – to work hard and untiringly

patch – small piece of ground

timber – wood or growing trees to be used for building

strife – struggle, conflict

Questions:

1. What is the key issue of this verse?

2. What symbolic value does timber possess?

3. What factor according to the author might influence who a person may become?

4. Do you really believe that hardships strengthen the spirit?

5. They say all our lives we have to win or lose little battles.

What feelings overwhelm you when you fail?

Does failure knock the bottom from under your feet or does it keep up a win-win spirit in you?

What would happen if success cushioned all your life?

6. How would you explain the meaning of these words:

“If everything does your way you are going the wrong way.”?

7. What definition could you give to “maturity”? Is it always relative to age?

8. Can an adult possess an undeveloped sense of responsibility and duty?

Where does it come from? What circumstance could set him strait?