IF-

• Original introduction by Ray Brimble:

I was reminded of this old, but incredibly great chestnut of a poem, entitled “If-” by Rudyard Kipling, when I was given a book by UT McCombs School of Business professor, Ray Raghunathan, called If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? (Super book- way to go Raj!).  Kipling also penned a similar missive which is inscribed above the entrance of the Wimbledon tennis stadium, which reads something like this: ”Learn to treat both victory and defeat with equal disdain.” Kipling’s knack for describing true integrity, as well as an authentic road to happiness, is on full display in both the missive, and the poem “If-”. These can be words to end our year of 2018 by, and begin our new year, 2019. I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

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• Poem by Rudyard Kipling, 1910

• Poem on the public domain, and may be located at: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/if%E2%80%94

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 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 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 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!