"If" By Rudyard Kipling

My Father read aloud to us when we were young.
Our favourite stories were among the writings of Rudyard Kipling.
As long as I can remember, during the course of my father Roelof's working life, he had this poem framed and hanging on the wall beside his desk.
He knew it off by heart as we came to know it too.

Recently I was reminded of the sometimes bitter struggles that emerge from the quest for possession of the riches derived from the various things that we all strive to achieve, creativity in all the varying arenas of human activity from the arts, science, music, historical research, etc.

There are always those people who are envious of our achievements, bitter from a perceived lack of recognition who would seek to undermine the work and worth of others rather than take the risk to sample the opportunity of striving for themselves.

Kipling states it succinctly in this poem.

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 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 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!

Joni Mitchel recognised the power of these words and has put this poem to music.
It features on her latest album, "Shine"