Each year around the holidays, my heart and mind think of Kipling and this powerful poem which I have reprinted for you and your family this holiday season.

I feel quite certain that Kipling and I have met in one of my Movies of the Mind or one of his.

To all my students, past, present and future who have studied Movies of the Mind with me, this poem will have extra special meaning for you.

I urge you to share it this holiday season with those who are special in your life.

I know that my Movie of the Mind has me and my family enjoying a very special New Year.

For you and your family, I wish it will be your best year ever.


www.steve-tarde.blofspot.com




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 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 them up with worn out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose and start again at the 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 or 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!