Ruth Desjardins Who are you today, young stranger?
Do you recognize yourself?
Are you making this a life of your own?
Or reacting to somebody else?
Are you living the way you really think–
As your deepest convictions demand?
Or do you second-guess yourself?
Are you actions second-hand?
Do you let the people who hurt you
Decide who you will be?
If you’re always reacting to what they do,
You’ll never be really free.
Do you realize you can waste your life
Reacting to everyone else?
No matter how cruel the world is,
You still have to be yourself.
If someone makes you angry,
Don’t do what he did to you,
For this would be a reaction–
And not the real you.
If someone hurts your feelings,
Saying something you’d never say,
You can’t say the same thing back to him,
That’s “reacting” to make him pay.
Be true to yourself when you’re angry:
Don’t repeat what made you mad.
Be true to yourself if you’re hurting,
And let yourself feel sad.
Do you bring yourself into every room?
Or a cynical “man of the world”?
Do you choke the hero in your soul
Before he can say a word?
Will your character just be reactions
To what other people do?
Or will you learn to assert yourself,
And let them react to you?
Who were you today? A hero?
How proud you must have felt,
To face the situation,
And simply be true to yourself!
Ruth Desjardins
1978
1991
