If
If you can keep your head when all about your 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 get 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, not 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 imposter just the same;
If you can to hear the truth you’ve spoken,
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you have given your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up again 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 breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they have gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will to say 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 foe nor loving friend 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 in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son.
- Rudyard Kipling
