And Now for Something Completely Different

Some time ago, when I was in college, I found myself in Trevors tiny apartment in the Campus Apartments apartment building (sorry for the affront to clarity, I didn't name it that).

If you know Trevor you know he has a lot of cool stuff. I’d almost go so far as to call him a pack rat except that when you say something like, "I wish I had a microscope" or "Did you ever see that Viking II photo’s of Mars", he’ll wander off only to return with a high school microscope or a book on the Viking missions to Mars. In any case, I found myself sitting on the floor and checking out all the mysterious stuff that presented itself to me from under his bed and just generally all over the floor. One of those things was a small piece of paper, a scroll really, with the poem below by Rudyard Kipling. And it’s something I thought you might enjoy.

[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!
--Rudyard Kipling