Joes Take on IF by Rudyard Kipling
“If” is a poem by Rudyard Kipling - below its copy/pasted in its entirety.
My short take on it - take it to heart and let your thoughts become words become actions. I firmly believe this poem has a deep wisdom/understanding to it if you’re able to sit in it and truly experience what the words are describing. I never hope to live through each example described - but only through him experiencing it was the understanding able to be communicated - through time, despite country, and into the future connected to new words and ideas. Looking forward to committing this to memory for a potential stand up recital combo-’d with a few jokes here or there.
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 them 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.
Video of it being recited by Sir Michael Caine
Also - in my opinion it applies to both men and women! Despite the dated writing style which was so common/pervasive…degendering does not reduce the power or importance of the words.
