by Val John Jennings

Created on: August 14, 2009

Holding On

As a student in school, I memorized a poem by Rudyard Kipling
entitled: "If".

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 all 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!

END OF POEM:

Having committed the poem to memory, it has come back time and again
to remind me that manhood is an earned reward.

One of my simpler enjoyments is figuring out word cypher puzzles that
appear daily in the newspaper. Initially I avoided them, expecting
them to be too hard and, thereby, consuming too much time. As I
persisted in solving them they became easier, interesting, fun, and
challenging.

So much of life seems difficult at first. A newspaper article I read
considered the issues being [ondered by elementary school students
such as global warming, loosing the rain forests, endangered species,
etc. The article pointed out that students are getting a gloomy view
of their world when they should be building friendships, developing
trust and enthusiasm, and enjoying life. Issues are less of an
obstacle when we are intelligently and emotionally prepared to handle
them.

When you feel unable to cope "when all around are blaming it on you",
you need to realize that like a ship

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