Happy New Year !

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 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 man count with you,
but none too much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with forty 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 !

 

Rudyard Kipling