Outside
the classroom, the other day,
a little
boy came up to me, and tugging
at the
hem of my garment, asked
How do I be a success like you?
And I
didn’t know what to say.
You see,
I’ve never thought of myself that way.
Because
after private school and two degrees
society
does not tend to see reading poetry
to kids
as a natural progression.
And
sometimes it feels like I’m not listening in the lesson;
like this
isn’t ‘real work’ or the kind of thing
a man should do.
My
parents tell me that I’m better than that,
that this
isn’t a real job,
that of
course giving kids the joy of words
is no bad
thing, but to leave it to someone else
and to go
out there and be someone.
Wear a suit, son.
Commute, son.
Be what
we expect of you, son.
And of
course we read poems and books to
you, son,
but this
wasn’t an end in itself.
At no
point did we dream that one day
you’d be
doing such a thing for anyone
other
than your own kids.
What are
you, a glorified bloody babysitter?
And so
the bitter taste at the back of my throat
when the
boy asked
How do I be a success like you?
arose from
not believing it to be true.
It arose
from skulking in the shadows
of people
my age already on 50k a year,
of people
my age with their own flats and cars,
and even
of the bloke at the bar who,
upon
being told that I work with children,
drunkenly
snorts paedophile, as though that
could be
the only explanation for a man
wanting
to do such a thing.
It arose
from having memorised
the lines
of a play
in which
I play no part.
But no: through that
boy’s eyes
I saw myself anew.
I saw myself anew.
So to the
boy who asked me
How do I be a success like you?
I say
this:
Believe
that what you’re doing is worthwhile.
Believe
that anyone who doubts you is mistaken.
Tell
yourself every day that you can be what you want to be.
Tell
yourself that success is not just reading
from
someone else’s script,
but
believing what you say,
or, even
better, writing the words yourself.
And know
that what counts is not whether
you’ve
spelt them correctly, or whether
they’re
in the right order,
but that
they. Are. Yours.
Success does not come in manuals.
Success
is not flat-pack furniture,
and – you
know what?
Success
certainly doesn’t come from listening to poems
about
what success is.
So, son, do
it your way.
Don’t
listen to what I say.
