My Task

To be honest, to be kind;
To earn a little and to spend a little less;
To make upon the whole a family happier 
     for his presence;
To renounce when that shall be necessary
     and not to be embittered;
To keep a few friends, but those 
     without capitulation;
Above all, on the same grim conditions,
     to keep friends with himself --
Here is a task for all that man has of 
     fortitude and delicacy.

                                     -- Robert Louis Stevenson