If – Rudyar Kipling

I remember my mother once gave me a copy of this poem when I was a -not so troubled- teenager and I liked it. Later I found it printed in some magazine -I remember the glossy paper- and I cut it out and kept it.

When I started studying at the University I went through a big crisis of imposter syndrome. Due to circumstances explained in another post on the web, my lack of previous background in mathematics and physics as well as my total absence of study habits and tools led me to be always questioning my worth and my chances of finishing my degree. One of the tools I adopted was to place a cork board in front of my study table. And there I retrieved that clipping and placed it prominently as the background of the board.

This poem accompanied me during those five years of my career, and I would look at it and reread it in moments of absolute despair, which were frequent. And I was always soothed by the powerful message it conveys.

I still keep it in my mind today more than ever. I have not yet managed to get as close to this stoic philosophy of life as I would like. But I am definitely making progress that I can sense in myself.

Since I don’t longer have a cork board, I’ll leave it here.

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 wornout 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!