Read both the Act of Valor Poem that Lt. Rorke leaves for his son at the end of the movie and the full version of the poem by Tecumseh, too.
Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.
Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask: How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done,
do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.
Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say, “Hi”?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short
The music won’t last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music
Before the song is over.
~ David L. Weatherford, Child Psychologist
Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions plans and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought by what you build,
not what you got but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success but our significance.
What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught,
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not our memories but the memories of those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that maters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.
~ Michael Josephson
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow,
Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
~ Edgar A. Guest
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow.
I am diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am gentle autumnal rain.
When you waken in the morning hush.
I am the soft uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry –
I am not there. I did not die.
~ Anonymous
Every day, think as you wake up,
Today I am fortunate to have woken up
I am alive, I have a precious human life,
I am not going to waste it,
I am going to use
All my energies to develop myself,
To expand my heart out to others,
To achieve enlighenment for
The benefit of all beings,
I am going to have kind
Thoughts twords others,
I am not going to get angry,
Or think badly about others,
I am going to benefit Others
As much as I can.
~ H.H. The XIV Dalai Lama
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death
but you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
~ Charles Bukowski
If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think that you dare not, you don’t
If you’d like to win, but you think you can’t,
It’s almost certain you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost
For out in the world you’ll find
Success begins with a fellow’s will.
It’s all in the state of mind.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.
~ Arnold Palmer, Golfer
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,
you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,
wear the same rapt expression, forgetting
themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
~ W. H. Auden