Today, our youth in Singapore got a break from school and celebrated “Youth Day”.
While we honour the youth in our nation on this day, let us also remind ourselves of Samuel Ullman’s poem “Youth”, in which he writes that: “Youth is not a time of life – it is a state of mind”.
So often in our society, we hear people use their age as an excuse for not pursuing their potential: “I’m too old to do this”, “I’m already an Uncle/ Aunty”, etc.
But it is almost always not the truth; it is a perception that limits one’s potential and reduces one’s opportunities.
As we honour our youth, may we remember to honour our talents and our potential. Happy Youth Day!
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YOUTH
By Samuel Ullman
it is a temper of the will,
a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions,
a predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.
People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
Years wrinkle the skin,
but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, doubt, self-distrust,
fear and despair – these are the long,
long years that bow the head and
turn the growing spirit back to dust.
Whether they are sixteen or seventy,
there is in every being’s heart
the love of wonder,
the sweet amazement at the stars
and starlike things and thoughts,
the undaunted challenge of events,
the unfailing childlike appetite
for what is to come next,
and the joy and the game of life.
You are as young as your faith,
as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence,
as old as your fear,
as young as your hope,
as old as your despair.
When the wires are all down
and all the innermost core of your heart
is covered with the snows of pessimism
and the ice of cynicism,
then you are grown old indeed.
But so long as your heart receives messages
of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur
and power from the earth,
from man and from the Infinite,
so long you are young.
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