Attitude determines the Result!

22.11.2009

This saturday, we have had an opportunity to sail off the coast near Gateway of India. Horizon on the west being pushed towards sun by the world still in dark but eagerly awaiting a sunrise, boats & ships in the harbour - some anchored for the day while others still floundering to find their moorings, a cool breeze warming the heart - just the perfect setting one could get used to for spending the lifetime - as the waves propelled by the breeze gently allowed us to float.

But was the breeze instrumental in directing the boat or were sail, expertly handled by the skipper, setting the direction?

Well, this doubt of mine had been put to the rest much earlier by Ella Wheeler Wilcox - an american poet of 19th century, who gave us one of the most repeated phrases:

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone"

Ms. Wilcox in her poem "The set of the Sails" used the metaphor of sails so beautifully when she wrote:

But to every mind there openeth,

A way, and way, and away,

A high soul climbs the highway,

And the low soul gropes the low,

And in between on the misty flats,

The rest drift to and fro.

But to every man there openeth,

A high way and a low,

And every mind decideth,

The way his soul shall go.

One ship sails East, And another West,

By the self-same winds that blow,

'Tis the set of the sails

And not the gales,

That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea

Are the waves of time,

As we journey along through life,

'Tis the set of the soul,

That determines the goal,

And not the calm or the strife.

Here is a moment clicked during our time out in the sea alongwith an excerpt from the poem - with a hope that you will enjoy it.