If I Do, Then I Can

It was in the fifth grade that I first stumbled across If by Rudyard Kipling. Well, it was actually an oral assignment that I was required to memorize. At one point, I'd memorized Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, all of the American presidents and the list goes on.

Yet they each left my memory as soon as I belted them to the teacher. But when I recited Kipling's empowering poem, those words stuck to my bones. Overcoming adversity was the mandate and I was introduced to the concept at a young age. Of course, I wouldn't  face my own bouts until years later, but the tone had been set. I too, could beat the odds.

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 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!