LivinGology

If - A Poetry Break

Here is one of my favourite poems - If. It was written by the English author and poet Rudyard Kipling, more famous for his Jungle Book. In 1995 If was voted Britain's favourite poem on the BBC opinion pool. The poem sounds like a fraction of value heritage passed on from a father to a sun and  conveys a philosophy of self control and search for harmony in life.  Every time I reread it, it reminds me how important  it is just to be a good person and how all other pety daily concerns lose their meaning if we lose the ground of who we are.
The posting is dedicated to a person who will never read it and who actually introduced me the poem. He himself incarnates its values and I am greatful to him for passing some of them onto me.

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, 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 all 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 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!