What does this poem mean to you?

"Dont Quit"

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 everyone 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 might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

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 afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit;
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

Well, it means what the title says. Or as Winston Churchill put it in a Speech Day address to the boys at his old school Harrow: "Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!"

To beat difficulties you are likely to need optimism and determination. With those qualities you may succeed spectacularly against the odds.

In short, persistence often pays. Despair never does.

Good advice, but not 100% reliable. You can't escape the need to exercise judgment, and you have to keep in mind your priorities. Someone once defined fanaticism as redoubling your effort when you've forgotten your aim. Persisting in self-destructive practices is silly. Persisting in a futile activity is so much wasted effort. A military commander who can't make a tactical retreat is seriously handicapped. There are times when the best course is to quit. Times when you need to 'know when to fold'em', as advised by -

‘The Gambler’
by Kenny Rogers

On a warm summer's evenin', on a train bound for nowhere,
I met up with the gambler; we were both too tired to sleep.
So we took turns a starin' out the window at the darkness,
'Til boredom overtook us, and he began to speak.

He said: "Son, I've made a life out of readin' people's faces,
And knowin' what their cards were by the way they held their eyes.
So if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're out of aces.
For a taste of your whiskey, I'll give you some advice."

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow.
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.
And the night got deathly quiet, his face lost all expression.
He said: "If you're gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right.

"You got to know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away; know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

"Now ev'ry gambler knows the secret to survivin'.
Is knowin' what to throw away, knowing what to keep.
'Cos ev'ry hand's a winner and ev'ry hand's a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

So when he'd finished speakin', he turned back toward the window:
Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness the gambler, he broke even,
But in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.

"You got to know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away; know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.”



Post Edited (01-04-05 16:28)

Or as someone else said "When you're trapped at the bottom of a hole, stop digging!"

Lemme see now, he has no whiskey, no cigarettes, and not even a match. But I should take his advice on how to win at cards? Thanks anyway.

I often do the same thing over and over again. I wonder why I do that same thing when I KNOW better. I have a friend who found that he was manic/depressive, compulsive/obsessive and parinoid. Now, the deck he is playing with is flawed. He now knows SOME of those flaws, but not all I would guess.

To me this poem means that you can not always judge how well you are doing -- especially in these days. If he gets up every morning, takes his meds and lives a somewhat normal life he is doing GREAT! Yet, he and society will judge him by the measuring rod set up for the "normal" person,,, and perhaps he falls far short of that.

I dont think we know what all we are challenged with - if each day we fall but get back up again or today we dont fall but tomorrow we do... but we don't give up, we have come a long way and can continue. If tomorrow I fall and I don't get up I am doomed to stay where I am at, not to grow or learn or overcome.

I once had a problem with conceptualizing this journey or ours. Now I look at it as a life time journey -- as long as I am on the road to Albuquerque (or through life) I will sometime get there. If I leave that road and don't get back on it I am doomed never to get to Albuquerque. It doesn't matter where I start from or where I leave the road -- I could be 2 steps away from Alb -- or 2,000,000. But I dont know how close or far I was because I quit.

That is what this poem says to me. Don't judge, do your best and keep on keeping on.

Cheryl-


Sometimes it doesn't hurt to wander off the road for awhile.
I have found that traveling light, without a goal or timetable, makes Albuquerque seem less important.
This may be a statement about the deck I'm playing, but it works for me.


Jack

Hi, I'm Laura,

(1st stanza)

no matter what troubles you go through you must do the best you can, and even if you are finding it really hard to cope with you might have to take a break from everything for a while, but don't give up what ever you do, hang in there and keep it up.

(2nd stanza)

Life always has its ups and downs, but thats just something that no one can help, its what life is about, and many of us learn this some time whether it be sooner or later, and eventually everyone will learn this, what life is about. many times people fail because they can't be bothered hanging in there, when the only reaon why they failed is because they didn't hang in there, and they gave up. althoug life may seem to go by really slowly, especially when you're in one of its "downturns", you must never give up just keep on trying no matter what, hang in there, don't give up, because you never know when the time comes that you failed just because you didn't hang in there.

(3rd stanza)

quite often in life, the goals which you want to achieve are closer than what you think they are, they are closer than what they may seem to be to someon who is either weak, and gives up, or to someone who puts themselves down alot. quite often it is these peopl who fail because they didn't hang in there, when they could have succeeded and achieved the goal that they may have been waiting for who knows how long. then, eventually, when these people do find out, or realise how close they were to achieving their goal, its too late, they can't turn back, and they regret giving up.

(4th stanza)

success is the opposite to failure
its that little bit of light shining through when ur in doubt
the thing is u can never tell when ur really close to success, u may be near it when ur thinking that its miles away
so when things are really hard and u feel u cant carry on thats when u should hang in there because thats the time that success is closest to you, its when it reaches this point that u must hang in there don't give up!

i hope this helps u!

from Laura.

i wish to know the poet of this poem.its really very meangful poem.plz kindly let me know the poet of this poem through email.plz send it to my email adress.
thank you