"30 Days" Update - Day 11: "If"

Shamelessly stolen from the Art of Manliness store

I'm going to start this out by saying I've never been completely into poetry. I feel it's something you have to be able to write in order to truly understand it. That being said, there are some poems that I will read and be able to feel what the author either wants me to feel or felt themselves. I believe this is one of those poems.

Rudyard Kipling was an English writer in the late 1800s and early 1900s. During his time, he wrote the classic story "The Jungle Book" along with many other short stories and poems. "If" is a poem Kipling wrote in 1895 that, in extreme paraphrase, says "if you can handle anything that's thrown at you, then you are a man".

Many men have taken inspiration from this poem, and I'm sure many more men will over time. It's a very good piece, and I believe it has much to say about being a man. Well I think I've rambled enough without showing you the actual poem. Without further ado, I give you "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 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!

Now you may have noticed this is supposed to be day 10 in the "30 days" project, but like I said a couple entries ago, I'm skipping around. The task is to memorize this poem but I feel as long as you read it, reflect on it, and enjoy it - maybe even keep it around to do the same thing later - the task is done. 

Read on, my friends, there will be more soon!

~J