It Couldn't Be Done - a week to forget !

Do you ever have one of those weeks you'd prefer to forget? I spent last weekend preparing and packing for a move to our new apartment on Monday and Tuesday. My boss from Kuala Lumpur arrived on Tuesday morning. I felt so guilty because I should have been helping Naila move my 700 plus books and papers that would be a great foundation for a new museum. Meetings with VIPS for three days, dinners, the usual inquisition you go through when bosses come on inspections. Then to top it off, a major earthquake late Wednesday afternoon and a relief operation. Interviews with CNN, BBC, Al Jezeera, and NZ and Australian media for two days. Tomorrow I leave for a week to the island of Nias which was badly affected by the Tsunami and a later earthquake. We have large water sanitation programme there and a big team that I need to visit. So I have Saturday and half of Sunday to unpack boxes and get our new apartment in shape. And guess, what have I been saying to myself all week ?


Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But, he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn’t," but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "couldn’t be done," and you’ll do it.


from Collected Verse of Edgar Guest
NY:Buccaneer Books, 1976, pg. 285