A motivational poem

Last week in a group of friends discussing the world and its problems over dinner someone referred to Rudyard Kipling's poem "If". I had not read the poem for several years but found that I still know large stanzas of it by heart. 


I was put off this poem over twenty years ago when some commentator on a radio discussion programme dismissed it as a relic of the British Empire. He was no doubt one of those Marxist intellectuals who reinterpret history to fit in with their narrow view of what constitutes human life. (Fortunately most of these people have now retired!)


Looking at the poem afresh I can honestly say I am truly moved by the sentiments expressed here. Kipling captures something about what it means to be a good human being and a valuable and contributing member of society. It is about being positive. It is about perseverance against the odds. It is about big society - in the proper sense of the word - not the political spin often associated with the word. It is a truly motivational poem.

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, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - 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 you'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 'em up with worn-out 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: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - 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 seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!