Looking Outward

Looking Outward

As we grow from boy to man
Two avenues await:
We can face the world with love
Or align ourselves with hate.

It seems so hard in many ways
To connect ourselves with others,
But only if we turn aside
The lessons from our mothers.

For in their entire manner lies
The roadmap for our travels.
Care for others more than us,
If not, our life unravels.

By logic, putting others first
Would mean we’d come in last.
But life will show us otherwise
As our troubles mount up fast.

The world tells us to always seek
The best for number one
And ignore any good
Our better natures might have done.

But what we fail to recognize
Is meeting another’s need
Diverts us from our tendencies
For cruelty and greed.

It simply is not possible
To take and never give.
To try it is to just exist
And never really live.

  • Jim Hagarty

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.