[Journal Review] The IF's

Journal Review(continued):
I found a poem by Joseph Rudyard Kipling very instructive. He was mentoring his young man.

If---

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourslef 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 heer the truth your've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for foos,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build'tm up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on oue 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 second's 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!

"Life is a tough art." After reading this poem, what else one can say? Kipling's concept of "being a man" is realy demanding. Men with those characteristics will find life rewarding in itself, whatever efforts and effects it presents.