ADHD, Perseverance and Rudyard Kipling

From some of what I';ve read, there are distinct differences or changes in how ADHD affects your life when you become an adult.  I believe there are more frustrations when it effects your memory or you find yourself procrastinating or not being able to get a good night's sleep.  When you're a kid you don't put pressure on yourself to get things done or to learn complex skills.  As an adult it is on you to go to bed on time and all the habits that comprise a worthwhile existence.   So when you have a condition that let's you waste time endlessly while forgetting you've got things to do, it creates obstacles to overcome. 

What I read is you need to develop habits to keep yourself on track.  Write 'to do lists' and refer to them frequently so you can keep to the course you set for yourself.   My goals need to get back to a more 'normal' sleep pattern, keep up the walks around the block, use the bike more, manage my time on the computer, i.e., spend less time 'surfing the net' and generally get more balance with an emphasis on getting physically healthy -- is the best way for me to spend my limited energy. 

If—

By Rudyard Kipling

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)






 Link: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175772#

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