This week I had my annual checkup with my internist. After his requisite probing, prodding, and test reviewing, he happily declared me officially alive…until next year. As has become our habit, after these official exams, we chatted a few extra minutes about mutual friends, our respective families, and, lastly, about what new, but insignificant, malady-of-the-month incursions might be breeching our aging walls of mortality. We shared a chuckle about our fleeting youth. It’s funny; when one can’t remember a thought that’s 30 seconds old, yet a single word can trigger a crystal-clear memory from years ago. It happened there. As I left the doctor’s office, I was recalling a poem stored in a mental drawer that had been locked away for at least a decade. As is often the case, the root of these memories was these weekly posts. Back in 2011, I shared the following story:
When his country achieved semi-independent status in 1935, Philippine President Manuel Quezon asked his friend, retired U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, to take the position of Military Advisor to the Commonwealth. MacArthur accepted and from 1935 – 1941 he lived and worked in the famous Manila Hotel. In his office, MacArthur had three frames hanging over his desk. On the left, a portrait of George Washington. On the right, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. And in between them, a version of a poem called “Youth” by Samuel Ullman.
On July 26, 1941, following the outbreak of World War II, President Roosevelt federalized the Philippine Army, recalled MacArthur to active duty in the U.S. Army as a major general, and named him commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. After the war ended in 1945, MacArthur was named the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan. As such, he effectively became the leader of Japan from 1945 – 1948. During that period MacArthur became revered by the Japanese people with his stature elevated to a level commensurate with the Emperor. In his office in Tokyo, once again hanging prominently, was Samuel Ullman’s poem.
Because of his position and prominence, MacArthur traveled extensively throughout Japan meeting with and giving speeches to government and industry leaders and the general populace. In his speeches he would often quote Ullman’s poem. Because of his influence, the poem became very popular among the Japanese, and it is still more renown and beloved there than in the West.
Youth
By Samuel Ullman
YOUTH is not entirely a time of life – it is a state of mind. It is not wholly a matter of
rosy cheeks, red lips, or supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life.
NOBODY grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
YEARS may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair – there are the long, long years that bows the heart and turns the growing spirit back to dust.
WHATEVER your years, there is in every being’s heart the lure of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing child-like
appetite for what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence,
as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. 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 twenty,
but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
With all the platitudes being bandied around today about our collective need to act and converse more like “adults,” perhaps now is a good time to resurrect the wisdom found in Samuel Ullman’s poetic definition of “Youth” and consider instead our acting, thinking, and speaking in a more “youthful” and “mature” manner. While these may seem on the surface to be contradictory, that is only the case if you associate youth and maturity in solely chronological terms. For maturity, or the lack thereof, is not confined to either young or adult. Each may possess or lack maturity if we mean it to be “the ability to think, speak and act one’s feelings within the bounds of dignity,” or that “the measure of one’s maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.” By the way, both of the previous quotes about “maturity” are attributed to Ullman.
It takes a very long time to become young. –Pablo Picasso
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque