On Strategy, Mission and Purpose (Ithaca — in Greek Mythology the island home of Odysseus).

As you set out for Ithaca

Hope your road is a long one

Full of adventure, full of discovery.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt —

Don’t be afraid of them

You’ll not find those on your way

As long as you keep your thoughts raised high

As long as a rare excitement

Stirs your spirit and your body

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt — you’ll not encounter them

Unless you bring them along inside your soul

Unless your soul puts them in front of you

Hope your road is a long one

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbours you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at many trading stations

to buy fine things,

and may you visit many cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaca always in your mind.

Arriving there is not the goal

So don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the marvellous journey.

Without her you wouldn’t have set out.

Source: Excerpted and (shamelessly) adapted from: C. P. Cavafy, “The City” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.