If…

image: azli jamal

IF…

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust youself 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 imposters 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 to 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!

 

This writing by Rudyard Kipling never fails to strike a chord with me. There’s something in my assembly about dignity, propriety and demeanour that it resonates with. I used to carry a handwritten copy of it in my wallet in the smallest, finest copperplate script I could muster. I believe that we all have something for each other, that our lives can be likened to a jigsaw puzzle and we each are the custodians of vital pieces to the emerging picture that we will all eventually become.