Desiderata

Who was Max Ehrmann anyway?

Dear friends,

Back in the 1970s, when I was in my twenties, a quiet poem was making loud waves. Desiderata, it was called. Latin for "things desired." You couldn’t walk through a college dorm or a commune without seeing it tacked to a wall or passed around in soft, worn copies. We called it the Hippy Bible. Not in jest, but in reverence. It felt like truth distilled—something that didn't shout but soothed, something that didn’t tell you who to be but gently reminded you how to be.

Today, oddly, Desiderata is not forgotten—it's more like it's unknown. Yet I would argue: there has rarely been a time when we’ve needed it more.

The poem opens, “Go placidly amid the noise and haste,” and already you feel the invitation to step out of the frenzy. Sound familiar? Scroll through the news, stand in a checkout line, or open a social media app. Noise and haste are our new normal. Max Ehrmann, who penned those words around 1927, was not trying to make a hit poem. He was an attorney-turned-poet, quietly writing in Terre Haute, Indiana, reflecting on how to live in integrity with oneself and others.

There’s something almost Taoist about Ehrmann’s work. He prized simplicity, nature, kindness. He did not preach. He observed. His lesser-known poems—I Go My Way, Love and Faith—are soft declarations of a soul refusing to be swept up in the madness of material ambition. He reminds us that peace isn’t somewhere we arrive; it’s how we travel.

I still hand out a printed copy of Desiderata to every student at the end of class. It feels like passing on a candle, something quietly illuminating. Some take it home and frame it. Others tuck it into a journal or leave it on the fridge. But every once in a while, someone tells me it helped them through a hard week, a hard year, or just a hard Tuesday. And I think: yes, this is why it still matters.

Recently, I came across an excerpt from one of Ehrmann’s other poems, and to my own surprise, I realized I had never truly explored the rest of his work. Like many, I had let Desiderata stand alone, unaware of the quiet treasures nestled in the folds of his lesser-known writings. What I discovered moved me deeply. There is a gentle radiance to his voice—soft-spoken truths that seem to float just above the noise of modern life.

In I Go My Way, he writes:

"All round is haste, confusion, noise.
For power and wealth men stretch the day
From dawn till dusk. But quietly
I go my way."

And in a piece titled Love and Faith:

"You are not poor if you love
something, someone, humanity maybe,
and have faith that you will somewhere,
sometime, be satisfied, though you know not how."

Another gem, A Remedy Much Desired, offers this tender balm:

"Let us lay down this heavy load;
And, side by side, far from the town,
Drive on some lovely country road;
And, wondering, watch the sun go down."

What a gift this sweet man has left us. His words are not for the history books alone—they are for us, now. For those navigating modern confusion with ancient hearts. For anyone longing for a bit of grace in the middle of their busy, beautiful, aching life.

So today, I invite you to read Desiderata again—or maybe for the first time. Then take a quiet moment to discover more of Max Ehrmann’s work. Let his gentle guidance seep in. He may not be trending, but his wisdom is evergreen. And like all true wisdom, it waits patiently for us to remember.

With care and quiet joy,

Bob Martin