Speeches

11th Annual Outstanding Students Reception

Remarks by Ambassador John D. Rood

Government House – Upper Gardens
April 27, 2006

Nassau, Bahamas

Governor General Hannah, Minister Sears, Minister Wisdom, Senator Whylly, friends and other distinguished visitors, students and parents.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.
It gives me great pleasure to be part of these efforts to recognize outstanding students.  Congratulations, students!  I see before me the future leaders of The Bahamas, and it is a good future.

As I thought about what to share this afternoon, I thought back to when I was 18.  I was about to leave to spend a summer in West End, working on the MS grand Bahama.  I was going alone, so I was a bit nervous.  But I was also excited.  I new the Bahamas and love the islands.  How could I not have a great summer in the Bahamas!

For graduation I received a poem as a gift.  Now, to an18-year old, poems were no at the top of my most-wanted list.  But for some reason, I took this poem with me and read it often that summer.  Since then I have always kept a copy and I found guidance in these words.

The poem is called “IF”, by Rudyard Kipling, and I want to share it with you.  I hope you will find wisdom in these words, as I did, and keep it with you on your life’s journey.

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 imposters 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 wornout 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!

 

Thank you and congratulations on being Outstanding Students.