...and I am NOT a man yet!!

IF By Rudyard Kipling

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 breath 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!

... and I am NOT a man yet!!

L if E revolves around the word ‘if’. Literally.


IF is one of my most favourite poems. Every time I read it, I connect to it at different levels. I can see tiny specks of my life in every line of this poem. But if only it was really so inspirational. It is. But I doubt if things really do work this way in our lives anymore.

"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"

Like really???
Kipling proclaims that the earth will be all his- he who can follow all the IF conditions of the poem. That ‘he’ really got to be something. An advertising person perhaps- he who wears a thick skin, accepts all the brickbats, holds his head high, swaggers to his office everyday and wears a smile to survive in the sadistic atmosphere of Advertising. A thankless, carnivorous, contentious world to be in.

And I realised today, this poem was indeed written for people like me. All those who are anywhere related to advertising industry, ponder over it for a minute. It really is for us.