Damn If You Do, Damn If You Don't!

I have been feeling really down the past few days.

I now know what it feels like to be hated and maligned. In my adult life, in spite of my candid nature, I have tried to make a conscious effort not to offend people...unfortunately, inadvertently in my work and the position I hold I cannot totally avoid it. I am often misunderstood and my good intentions become suspect. I know that what ever I do, I will never be able to please everyone in my life and I will be stepping on some people's toes. It's damn if you do, damn if you don't!  Well, this fact is more true now than at any other point in my life.  In the last four years there are 2 people who have manifested in more ways than one that they hate my guts and would be ecstatically happy if I fall flat on my face. They have tried their utmost to embarrass me and soil my reputation and good name...why? Because they perceived that I have wronged them. I suspect that one very devious person who seems innocent enough but who probably resents me just as much as the other two is conniving with them. There is really nothing much that I can do except be true to the purity of my intentions...I can only pray for a positive outcome for myself. Anyway, I came across this poem while browsing...and boy, did it make me feel good! It was written by Rudyard Kipling and reading it, I felt somewhat relieved. I'm posting it here...maybe someone with a problem or concern will read it...and feel comforted...like me.

IF

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 impostors 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 worn-out 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!