🔰IF by Rudyard Kipling (Read by Sir Michael Caine)
The Kipling poem is one of my favorites since I was a boy at school. My father read it to me once
and I think it to me as a little boy it summed up what a man should be.
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 allowances 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 look 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 hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools or watch the
things you gave your life for broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. If you
make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start
again at the beginning 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 done and so hold on when there is nothing in
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 40 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.