If...

My all time favourite poem...

IF

~ Rudyard Kipling

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 of waiting

Or being lied about, dont deal in lies

Or being hated, don't give way to hating

And yet don't look too good or 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 imposters just the same

If you can bear to hear the truth you have spoken

twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools

Or watch the things you've given your life to, broken

and stop to build them 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 begginings

and never breathe a word about your loss

If you can force your heart, 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 that says "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 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!