IF - By Robert Kipling

If you can keep your head when everyone around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you...  if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you and make allowances for their doubting too...  if you can wait and not be tired of waiting or being lied about don't deal in lies, or being hated dont give way to hating- and yet dont look too good nor talk to 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 triump and disaster and treat them just the same...  if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools and watch everything you gave your life to broken and stoop and build it up with worn out tools... If you can take 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 nerve and sinew to serve its turn long after you're gone and then hold on when there's 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 foe nor loving friend 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 distant run, Yours is the earth and every thing in it and which is more...

YOU'LL BECOME A MAN MY SON!

by Robert Kipling