If
1910
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 on one 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 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!
- Commentary
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IF. A promise. Not, ‘maybe you will’, or, ‘there’s a chance you might’. IF. If you can do these things, then you will be a man. He isn’t demanding like Socrates did with the men of Athens, he’s telling. If you want to be a man, then you can be, IF…
This is the first poem to appear in this magazine because it reminds me what it means, not just to be a man, but to be human. Kipling speaks father to son, man to soldier, but this poem is a message that echoes over a century later. In 1995, exactly 100 years after it was written, the IF was voted the UK’s favourite poem in a BBC poll, and is quoted above the entrance to Wimbledon's centre court: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/ And treat those two impostors just the same”. It’s not about winning or losing, it’s about playing on centre court. “And never breathe a word about your loss”. Fill every minute, with life lived, “With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run”.
Kipling doesn’t have a definition for what a man is, he defines it through action. Drinking, fighting, or fucking, none of it appears here. For the men who feel more like men after fighting or fucking, I don’t deny that feeling, but know that you’re missing something. I don’t know what that missing thing is in words, but I know what it feels like: Telling your friend to pick up his litter when he drops a napkin on the floor, not to attack him, but because your country is your home, and because he knows better, and so do you. When you’re teaching a class full of kids in 32 degree weather with no aircon and the feeling that minimum wage isn’t covering this shit, starts to creep in like a grey shadow. You ask yourself what would the best version of you do?
This isn’t a poem about cars, money, or sex. This is a call to strength, honour, and pride; and living the way you ought to live, not just the way you want to. I hope this poem gives you what it has given me, and reminds you what kind of men we can be, IF.
— H 6 July 2026
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