If This week has been a bumpy ride for me.
Yesterday I flunked the most important interview of my life so far. It was a teaching post I wanted really bad, at a school I have poured my heart and soul into over the last few months while I have been teaching there as part of my training. Head of Department was really eager for me to get the post, and we have done great things working together, but when the day came, I just didn't show my best side. I had a panel of four to convince, only one of whom really knew me, and someone outshone me. Frankly, I was gutted.
Today things are looking brighter. It got better as the day wore on (back in the same school where I'd just failed to get a post). In the crowded staff briefing this morning, sitting through the announcement that such-and-such-a-body got the post was quicker and easier than I thought it would be. Many colleagues offered me their commiserations, and I know some of them really believed in me, and still do, so that feels good.
It was Rudyard Kipling who came to the rescue during my self-talk session in front of the staff washroom mirror this morning. Kipling's poem If contains an almost Solomonic wisdom that has been an inspiration to me in many of life's toughest moments, especially these lines:
If you can ... watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools ...
He has a way of describing these things perfectly.
If you aren't familiar with Kipling's poem, I reproduce it here for your enjoyment, encouragement and instruction.
If
By Rudyard Kipling
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 imposters 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 wornout 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 breath 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!
Dave
8:51:56 PM 
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