This year,

Elias holds the key to being seventeen, right in the palm of his hand.

 I don’t quite know how that happened;  he was just born yesterday and he has been here forever.

When we checked into our hotel in Tobago to celebrate with scuba diving and beach combing, we were given this key to our room.

 Funny how the universe works like that so often.

As we were driving home with scuba teacher Tuley, a hip forty something Trini who is as passionate about scuba as he is about life in general, he and Junie were in the front seat  humming along to an eighties band called The Fabulous Pop Tarts as they put the Desiderata to music, complete with an eighties beat.  Elias, Nicole, and I squished into the back seat of his hipster jeep, marveling that Junie and Tuley could find such animated hummable-ness in an Irish prose from the 1920’s.

But there it was.

So here it is again.

My wishes for you Elias, as you launch into your seventeenth year,

can be found in this very same Desiderata that your Dad was grooving to as we wound through the narrow streets of Tobago on the day of your seventeenth birthday.

.

Desiderata:

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals;

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be critical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to guard you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,

and whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be careful.

Strive to be happy.

© Max Ehrmann 1927