If

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 allowances 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!

(Rudyard Kipling)

This is one of my old favorites.