You Say Goodbye And I Say Hello Poem by Bill Upton

Since I was a boy, I've been given deadlines,
Arbitrary dates and times to snap to it-
Moments that if missed would never again be able to be repeated;
Moments that if missed would result in
Artificial catastrophe.
And I was young, and I believed
That certain things must happen by certain times
Or else my non-compliance would seal my fate,
My ultimate destiny,
For success.
'If you don't comply with the deadline
It will result in failure'...
In schoolwork,
In relationships,
In jobs,
In happiness,
In life.
Over time, my vision has improved,
And deadlines more closely resemble empty words
From desperate salesmen,
From frazzled parents and teachers,
From bosses and worried loved ones.
But I learned from missing so many of them
And, consequently, avoiding doomsday and Armageddon and Y2K,
That they were not lethal.
They were man-made,
But most of all,
They never really mattered
And they never really will.