An Important Poem

Dec 2025

My Mom was a big fan of poetry, rhyme and romance. I grew up used to hearing her recite every now and then —all of a sudden and with passionate focus— some random poems or funny tongue twisters. As a kid, I was captivated by her unanticipated performances and the rhyming words but didn’t make much of it consciously. As a young teenager, I used to cringe when my mom switched from casual talk to intense eloquence in front of people. I always took for granted that intensity and vitality which she radiated until I met more and more adults and realized that it might have been a fascinating peculiarity of hers.

Of all of the poems for which she fancied to throw a spontaneous performance, there was one in particular that felt more directed at me. Although as far as I can remember she never explicitly dedicated it to me, the seriousness and one-to-oneness of this particular recital always stood out to me. After having paid closer attention to her words, it became obvious that it was a dedication, and it was somehow clear to me how much wisdom was compressed in those 4 stanzas. I added the “I should probably read it and ponder on it” item to my mental backlog somewhen in my teens.

In the meantime, my mom passed, I got married, graduated, emigrated, changed careers, graduated (again) …, became a german citizen and my twenties flew by… It’s only now, in my early 30s, that my subconscious has decided to bring it back up to the top of the TODOs. So, over the last several weekends, I’ve developed the hobby of reciting the poem line by line. Each Saturday, after taking out the trash, I take a detour to my nearest lake —a few minutes’ walk away. On the way I recite a few new lines, drawing parallels with my life experiences and deepening my understanding of it, while also noticing the rhyme and connections between the lines of the previous week as I go over them.

I’ve finished it and now know the lines by heart. The meaning of it I’m sure I’ll keep unpacking for a long time.

If

By Joseph Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head, while 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 a 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 on 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!