You know, something my friends and I discuss a lot is how to feel better when you’re just not feeling good.  Emotionally, not like with the flu or something.  I’m a big fan of riding it out–you’re meant to feel low when you feel low, it’s instinctual and there’s probably something important that you need to gather from the feeling.  However, this contrasts sharply with positive thinking, and one usually doesn’t allow for the other.  So whether or not I’m flipping my position, I need a little bucking up today.

So what do I do?  Recite poetry.  I’m an English major, give me a break.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

That’s a good one.  So’s this:

If

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!

Okay, it’s no secret, I love me some Kipling.  Sigh.  Just trying to keep those words in my head, and trying to believe that this will get better.  One day, this will get better.

Right?

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