The 100 year old poem with golden wisdom
The type of character athletics helps you develop laid out clearly
A Poem to Bring Out Your Best Character
I’m not a giant Poetry fan but this one ALWAYS gets me.
To me, it’s the perfect character exemplified by a gentleman athlete.
A poem about self-confidence, but not arrogance
A poem about self-dignity, but not too serious
A poem about how to live, but not about life’s outcomes
A poem about character, not reputation
A poem about boldness of self, not self-doubt
A poem about obligations to self, not expectations of others
A poem that challenges you to rise to your best version
It’s not a coincidence Rudyard Kipling wrote this poem, entitled ‘If’ at the height of the Amateur sports craze in the Western World.
It’s a poem about virtue, honor, service, and legacy.
Read the lines intently and I think you’ll agree, athletic training from the heart can turn us into the type of person Rudyard imagines.
What’s most valuable is knowing these are words of wisdom from a father to a son, a guide on how to live responsibly and nobly in world that tears at principle and value. We can be both the guide and the guided, we can teach and learn, we can promote and grow.
But only ‘if’ we bring our pure and open hearts to realizing the best that lies within each one of us.
My challenge, become the person Rudyard imagines by training and competing with love, desire, passion, and tenacity.
You’ll find excellence and humility.
You’ll find discipline and courage.
You’ll find beauty and transcendence.
You’ll find love and assurance.
Read the full poem below, I know it will leave a deep impression on you, just as it has me.
I’d love to know your thoughts on the poem, if it inspires you, if it challenges you, if it clarifies confusion for you, if it created confusion, or any response that hits you deeply. Leave a comment or send me a message and let’s talk about the meaning you’re finding and how to turn that in actions!
“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!”
So good!!