If and When

[FATHER]: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; [SON]: I've tried, but my mind's a storm and chaos reigns. I'm blamed for failures I couldn't control or foresee. [FATHER]: If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: [SON]: Doubt is my constant companion; trust has fled. Their doubts cut deep; there's no allowance for my pain. [FATHER]: 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; [SON]: Patience is a cruel joke when every moment drags. Lies surround me, and truth seems a distant memory. Hate has found a home in my heart; it's hard to resist. No pretense remains; wisdom seems a bitter folly. [FATHER]: 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; [SON]: My dreams are broken, scattered like dust in the wind. Thoughts torment me, a relentless tide of regret. Disaster is my constant companion; Triumph a stranger. They've never been impostors; one's a thief, the other a myth. [FATHER]: 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: [SON]: The truth is a burden; my voice has no power. Fools and knaves seem to prosper; truth brings me no solace. Everything I cherished lies in ruins before me. My hands are empty, the tools gone or shattered. [FATHER]: 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; [SON]: I've lost all, there's nothing left to heap. No more risks to take; I've gambled and lost it all. Beginnings are behind me; the end is all I see. My losses speak louder than any words I could muster. [FATHER]: 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!’ [SON]: My heart is weary, my nerve frayed, my sinew weak. They've left me, abandoned in this barren land. There's nothing left to hold, just empty echoes. Will is a whisper lost in the clamor of despair. [FATHER]: 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; [SON]: Virtue seems a luxury I can no longer afford. Kings and crowds alike seem distant and unkind. Friends have vanished, foes triumphant; hurt is my constant. No one counts; isolation is my grim reality. [FATHER]: 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! [SON]: Each minute drags, unforgiving and relentless. Running gets me nowhere; the distance is insurmountable. The Earth feels cold and empty, stripped of its promise. I was a man; now I’m a shadow, lost in the void.