Sunday Poem #1: ‘Don’t Blame Anyone’ by Pablo Neruda
We are trying something new at The Unlearner today. Beginning today, we will be sharing a new poem on every Sunday.
To start us off, we have Pablo Neruda‘s beautiful and soul-stirring poem called ‘Don’t Blame Anyone’. This one isn’t as well known or as frequently brought up as his other poems (most notably the love poems) but I like this one specifically because it shows a side of Neruda we don’t usually get to see.
It reads like a heartfelt call to the reader, an earnest manifesto for anyone in the depths of life’s hardships. Enjoy.
Never Blame Anyone
by Pablo NerudaNever complain about anyone, nor anything,
because basically you have done
what you wanted in your life.Accept the difficulty of improving yourself
and the courage to start changing yourself.
The triumph of the true man emerges from
the ashes of his mistake.Never complain about your loneliness or your
luck, face it with courage and accept it.
In one way or another it is the outcome of
your acts and the thought that you always
have to win.Don’t be embittered by your own failure or
blame it on another, accept yourself now or
you’ll keep making excuses for yourself like a child.
Remember that any time is
a good time to begin and that nobody
is so horrible that they should give up.Don’t forget that the cause of your present
is your past, as well as the cause of your
future will be your present.Learn from the bold, the strong,
those who don’t accept situations, who
will live in spite of everything. Think less in
your problems and more in your work and
your problems, without eliminating them, will die.Learn how to grow from the pain and to be
greater than the greatest of those
obstacles. Look at yourself in the mirror
and you will be free and strong and you will stop
being a puppet of circumstances because you
yourself are your own destiny.Arise and look at the sun in the mornings
and breathe the light of the dawn.
You are part of the force of your life;
now wake up, fight, get going, be decisive
and you will triumph in life. Never think about
luck because luck is
the pretext of losers.
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