Let me begin by telling you that I did not choose a difficult life-but it chose me. It is up to me as to how I respond to it. I have endured more than I ever thought that I could, and yet with the help of Big G and Little g, regardless of my circumstances, there is learning in the pain, and in the sorrows. As we age we come to understand the losses, and like a seasoned pressure cooker we manage the pressures of life. Some of us have more pain, disillusionment, and loss than others, but I can tell you that Joy comes through pain and loss. We have to work at seeing the joy in the many small things around us; the children that are still laughing and playing and enjoying the spring; the flowers that bloom up through the earth with spectacular colour until the warm rains bring out the growing greens of the earth.

We have to battle through our lows, and overcome the self-doubts and rise above challenges. Love is a powerful force that will dissolve obstacles, heal conditions and overcome inequity. We are all empowered to feel our potential and to make this world a better place, but we have to have courage and grace to face situations that life will throw at us.

Courage is the quality of mind or spirit that enables us to face difficulty, danger, and pain. Nelson Mandela suggests that courage is found in the moment and often is more like bravado; a pretence of courage which comes as you act it out. To act in accordance with one’s beliefs, in spite of criticism and gossip, demands courage of one’s convictions. Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If..is one that stays with me as a motto and maxims for life. Kipling had a tragic and unhappy life. Starved for love and attention and sent away by his parents; beaten and abused by his foster mother; a failure at school, and later with the loss of both of his children. In spite of his critics he gained fame, and this poem was the inspiration for leading a raid against the Boers in southern Africa.

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 impostors 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 worn out 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 breathe 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!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)