Youth & the Year Ahead

2005 will soon draw to a close. It has been an eventful year for me participating in running, trekking and biking; I hope you have the same experiences too.

Moving forward, let us renew our commitment and enthusiasm to strive harder in outdoor quest and also in our career.

Wishing you a challenging and happy year ahead.

Below is my favourite inspirational passage and I would like to share it with you. It can really inspire and charge me up whenever I do not have the “oommp” in my endeavour; I hope it has the same profound effect on you too.

I first read this passage below in the September 1990 edition of Reader's Digest. I like it so much that I cut it out and keep it. After 15 years, on 2 January 2005, I decided to type into a softcopy document and share with my friends via emails. One of my friends was so touched and energized with the message that he replied excitedly: "YEAH...Let us die young at …". Then I realized that it was only the second day of 2005. It was really inappropriate for me sending the passage that provoked him to mention "die" at the start of a new year – did not sound auspicious. Nevertheless, I survive 2005 with much vigour.

So, I think it is appropriate to publish it at the end of the year.

Cheers,
KCxxx :-))



Youth

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20; but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80. (From Reader’s Digest - September 1990)

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