‘I doubt it’ should be my middle name,

And if doubt was a game

I’d be on the leader board

For every decade since the eighties,

When all of the world’s issues

Became weighty on my shoulders

Gaining at least a metric tonne for each year I got older,

And I should have been bolder

And done really brave things –

I don’t mean joining CND and blocking a road,

Hacking computers and cracking a code,

Hitch-hiking round the country alone –

I did all of those.

 

I mean acts of true bravery

That might just have saved me

From not ever feeling good enough

And never really being half as tough

As I seem.