What we regret most are the chances we never took!

Every once in a rare while, we come across gems at the least expected places.  We are out looking for something, perhaps even trivial is the pursuit, when there is that mother lode.  A treasure chest seemingly waiting for somebody, anybody, and it happened to be us.

That kind of serendipity occurs not often in our lives, but when they do, we ought to know to hold on to that gem.

In my case, it was a television sitcom, and a re-run at that, which I was watching when I heard a few lines of a poem being recited.  Those couple of lines spoke to me, which is what we expect from good poetry.

I couldn't wait to get to Google and search for those lines.  It turned out that the sitcom character had quoted from the final stanza of Lord Tennyson's Ulysses.  Well, I give you more than what I heard recited:

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I wish us all well with the chances that we take, and may we never have to regret the chances we didn't, and don't, take!