If…

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, donā€™t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, donā€™t give way to hating,
And yet donā€™t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dreamā€”and not make dreams your master;
If you can thinkā€”and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth youā€™ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ā€™em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ā€œHold onā€;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kingsā€”nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty secondsā€™ worth of distance runā€”
Yours is the Earth and everything thatā€™s in it,
Andā€”which is moreā€”youā€™ll be a Man, my son!

By English poet Rudyard Kipling (1865ā€“1936), written circa 1895

Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.