Reflections on a Cold, Dark Night -- Dec. 6, 1968

 

I Shall Be Set Free

Reflections on a Cold Dark Night

By Richard Seeley

This is my column and it is a very personal thing and these things I’m going to say are my things to say out of my head.

There was a time when I thought all things were possible if you only tried hard enough to reach them. And now I know that everything is beyond reach and you can only approach some things. We must all come to accept failure because it is the tragic nature of life that all must fail.

All you can do is learn to accept your failures. Live with your broken heart and try to understand that the worst things that ever happened to you, happened to me, and happened to the best person you ever knew. 

And sometimes it may be good and sometimes it may be bad. It is important not to judge people. But only love them the way they are and remember them the way they were the best time you ever knew them.

Sometimes you will help people and sometimes you will hurt people without even meaning to, and often you will mean to. There is nothing that can be done about this because that is the human being in you.

It is important that you remember that you have nothing to regret about what you have done because there is no way to reach back to the places you were once and change anything you did. 

As long as you are your own person you have nothing to be ashamed of. Never be sorry for what you are or what you have done. Don’t let others make you be what you are not. 

As I leave you this is to remember:

The world was not made by people who did not do. Do those things that are in your heart to do. Live the person you are no matter what. Try to be strong when strength is called for; try to be gentle when gentleness is called for; try to understand when understanding is called for. Try to LOVE, for it is always called for.

~ Dec. 6, 1968, Quaker Campus, Whittier College student newspaper, Vol. 55, No. 11