My Life Must Touch a Million

I found this poem years and years ago while I was in college.  The last verse especially stuck with me, so I penned it out on a nice piece of paper, and I kept it tacked to the bulletin board in my dorm room all through college, and I've had it in a prominent place over the years, reminding me that my actions affect other people.  For good or for bad, everything I say or do does impact other people.  I try to keep that in mind, so that when I'm dealing with difficult people, I can keep in mind that they might have had the worst day of their lives, and maybe, just maybe, my little bit of kindness is the one bright spot in a horrible day.

I wanted to share this today.  I won't go into details of why I needed to see this today, but let me say, I did need to pull this up on my cell phone and meditate on the thoughts in the poem for a while.

As I Go On My Way

 

My life shall touch a dozen lives before this day is done--

Leave countless marks for good or ill ere sets this evening sun.

Shall fair or foul its imprint prove, on those my life shall hail?

Shall bension my impress be, or shall a blight prevail?

 

When to the last great reckoning the lives I meet must go.

Shall the wee, fleeting touch of mine have added joy or woe?

Shall He who looks their records o'er--of name and time and place--

Say "Here a blessed influence came" or "here is evil's trace"?

 

From out each point of contact  of my life with other lives

Flows ever that which helps the one who for the summit strives.

The troubled souls encountered--does it sweeten with its touch,

Or does it more embitter those embittered overmuch?

 

Does love in every handclasp flow in sympathy's caress?

Do those that I have greeted know a newborn hopefulness?

Are tolerance and charity the keynote of my song

As I go plodding onward with earth's eager, anxious throng?

 

My life shall touch a million lives in some way ere I go

From this dear world of struggle to the land I do not know.

So this the wish I always wish, the prayer I ever pray:

Let my life help the other lives it touches by the way.

Strickland Gillilan

 

 

It's that last line that has stuck with me through the years, and one I needed to repeat to myself again today:

Let my life help the other lives it touches by the way.

 

 

I pray that I was a blessing and a help today.