If

I have an aversion to most poems. I think they're usually beautiful but empty. I'll take a story and a plot over a poem any day. But this very famous and completely non-innovative poem by Rudyard Kipling is giving me a lot of comfort right now. And I'm putting it here, on this, my vitrual spirit board or hope board or whatever the heck it is Oprah calls it. I'm having a tough go of things. This job search thing, guys, it's broken me down and kicked me in the butt and destroyed any ego I may have once had. And half the time I can laugh about it, like when I click on a job that lists dressing up as a furry mascot as one of its duties. But the other half of the time, well the other half of the time is not so good. And so I need very much to surround myself with beautiful, inspiring things that take me out of myself and give me some much needed strength.

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 '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 breath 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!