By Muhammod Abu Sayed
Employability and Progression Poem
The Two Kinds of People
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the sinner and the saint, for it’s well understood,
The good are half bad and the bad are half good.
Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man’s wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.
No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean,
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.
I don’t have many poets in my library of literature, but Ella Wheeler Wilcox is one of them. I love this poem because it underlines a fundamental understanding of how other people make us feel. There’s a popular saying – ‘People don’t remember what you did, they remember how you made them feel’, and I think this poem brings this concept to mind.
The line of “The good are half bad and the bad are half good” to me, means that whether you are a good or a bad person, you’re never really that type of person all the way. Nobody is purely good – for example, the recent turmoil surrounding Ellen DeGeneres comes to mind, and very few people are purely bad people to the core.
I particularly like the idea that in order to know how “rich” a person really is, you also have to know what that person has sacrificed in order to get to that point. In other words, they may be wealthy beyond your or my wildest dreams, but have they had to destroy the lives of others to do that? Have they had to work punishing hours and scrimp on sleep, eating takeaways and fast food, thus affecting their health? It’s food for thought. Riches can’t buy friends (not real ones) and in terms of health, my mother always said that and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
And so, Ms. Wheeler Wilcox comes to her conclusion, that the two types of people are those who help others, who hold others up and who stand up for what is right; and the people who prop themselves up by using the hard work of others. In order for us all to progress in life, we must all be willing to help one another, either with practical skills, advice or even simply a sympathetic ear. This could also be interpreted to mean the people who work hard – who lift – who graft and try their best every time, and the people who are content to rest on their laurels, lean back and enjoy the ride.
Which one are you?
