Start Where You Stand

A good motivational poem about leaving the past behind and looking to the future today.

Start where you stand and never mind the past;

The past won't help you in beginning new,

If you have left it all behind at last

Why that's enough, you're done with it, you're through;

This is another chapter in the book,

This is another race that you have planned,

Don't give the vanished days a backwards look,

Start where you stand.

The world won't care about your old defeats

If you can start anew and win success;

The future is your time, and time is fleet

And there is much of work and strain and stress;

Forget the buried woes and dead despairs,

Here is a brand-new trial right at hand,

The future is for him who does and dares,

Start where you stand.

Old failures will not hald, old triumphs aid,

To-day's the thing, tomorrow will soon be;

Get in the fight, and face it unafraid,

And leave the past to ancient history.

What has been has been; yesterday is dead

And by it, you are neither blessed or banned;

Take courage, man, be brave and drive ahead,

Start where you stand.