"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
................................................................
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more -you’ll be a Man, my son!"
This Rudyard Kipling's
"If" poem was one of my favorites during my early adolescence. I couldn't entirely understand the melodramatic tone of the poem back then. I was just sensing that life - and the poet's talent - had distilled some omnipotent truth in this particular poem, so something was telling me to keep it in me as some precious resource. That proved to be a wise move because as the years were passing by I was ever more encountering situations were I had to make a stand against many individuals supporting a totally different point of view. I was thus resorting often to this poem, as I was struggling to maintain my inner balance. Because difficult as it might be to stand all alone against many it is (when creative) one of the holier tasks a human being can undertake...
