If – Rudyard Kipling

Remember, every minute is unforgiving. It cannot wait for you for a second. It will always be sixty seconds. If you
have been running in every second, if you hadn’t sat idle, whether you lost or won, this world is yours. Rudyard
Kipling gives us a great bundle of advice – if you are ambitious, if you have a dream, if you often feel disappointed,  if
people blame you, if you lost all that you have struggled for, read this poem.

Stanza 1

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;
Notes

If you can remain cool while all else, friends, relatives or classmates, go mad and blame you for no reason, yours is
the world. You were always a respected, trusted person but suddenly people around you started doubting you, for no
reason. If you allow them to doubt you, if you do not hate them for doubting you, this is your world!

Meaning

o If you can keep your head – If you can feel proud of yourself.
o All about you – All the people around you.
o When all about you are losing their heads – When all the people around are losing their confidence in you.
o Make allowance – Allow.
o Make allowance for their doubting too – Allow people doubt you without complaining.

Questions & Answers

1. What should one do when everyone else is getting angry because of him/her?
When everyone else is getting angry with one, he or she should not lose self control. He should keep his head high
and feel confident.
2. Why is trusting oneself important?
Trusting oneself is important because if we start suspecting ourselves, there will be no one to give us courage and
confidence.
3. What should we do when others doubt us?

Stanza 2

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;
Notes
o We need to wait for the right time, right chance, right word, right friend, right job, right spouse and everything else!
Got it? Impatience is the biggest enemy of this waiting. If we can overcome this impatience and continue waiting,
there are all the chances of a winner in this world.
o Expect people around to be lying. They will tell all the lies against you, false-witness you, take you to the courts of
justice and try you. Does that mean that you can tell lies? No, not for earning a living or for a good name. No lies.
o Apart from being lied about, you will be hated by many, may be by everyone. People hate and then they love. People
love and then they hate. When you are hated, you start hating them. Can you overcome hating others? If you can,
son, daughter, you have won the battle!
o With all these qualities, having overcome hatred, impatience and the urge to lie, you will be the best person in the
world, so there is another problem – the world will hate you for being too good, for being too wise. You belong to such
a society that hate you if you are exceedingly good or wise.
Questions & Answers
1. What are the virtues/values mentioned in the above stanza?
2. Why shouldn’t we look too good nor should we speak too wisely?

Stanza 3

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;
Notes

o Dream, we should. Great men and women had dreams in their lives and they lived to achieve their dreams. If you too
dream, good, but if you are just a day dreamer, finding pleasure in dreaming and not doing anything to make the
dream come true, you are just a waste, my dear! Beware, dreams can be your master and you will be the slave of
dreams.
o There are so many people who think and think. Most of these people consider themselves as philosophers and
pretend that they move the wheel of history. No. Thinking and planning do not have any significance unless they take
shape, unless they materialize, unless the thinker became doer.
o Now the poet presents two impostors – triumph and disaster. The poet calls them two impostors – impostor is a
person who practices deception under an assumed character, identity, or name – because triumph and disaster are
not real. When we make achievements, we forget our bad days and when we lose, we forget our days of prosperity.
The poet wants us to treat triumph and disaster alike. May there be happy days or sad days, may there be success or
decay, do not welcome one of them after shutting the door against the other. Success or failure, welcome.
Meaning

o Triumph – Success in life

o Disaster – Failure
o Impostors – A person who pretends to be good to fool others; fraud; cheat

Questions & Answers

1. What goes wrong in dreaming? Why?

We should have dreams and should work hard to achieve them. However, some people make dreams their master.
They do not work hard to achieve their dreams.
2. What goes wrong when thoughts become our aims?
When we are merely thinkers, we fail to do our duties and eventually our aims will be forgotten. Thoughts without
action is worth nothing.
3. How should we treat triumph and disaster?
We should consider triumph and disasters alike. We should not be excessively excited over triumph nor should we be
depressed and lost during disasters.
4. Why are triumph and disaster said to be ‘impostors?’
Both,

Stanza 4

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;
 Notes
o A good lesson for good leaders – ministers, kings, leader of a society or a family. You have always been truthful but
for selfish motives your enemies deface your good image. You happen to hear the truth you told
broadcast/published/printed with slight discrepancy/deviation. Media can make a hero out of a worthless man so can
they deprive the hero of his triumphs. Like media, so many people will attempt to present your truth wrong for fooling
the senseless public to secure votes and sympathy.
o Imagine this. You father built a business world with a lot of hardwork and sweat. At a point he asked you to manage
the business affairs but you couldn’t prove to be a successful business magnet. Within a year you brought the
company’s assets to zero. Your father will have a broken heart. The poet advises this father to bend down, pick the
broken tools and pieces and build the company again. If he can, he is a winner.
Questions & Answers
1. Who are knaves?
A knave is an unprincipled, untrustworthy, or dishonest person.
2. What do knaves do with the truth we have spoken to them? What for do they do so?
3. Give an example from your real life for, “things you gave life to broken.”
4. What should we do when we see the things we gave life to broken?

Stanza 5

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;
Notes
o The poet advises us to be gamblers! He means that we should go to the farthest edge of risk in life. On one side you
gather all your achievements and on the other a toss of fortune! You may win the toss and get double: or you lose the
toss and lose all that you have achieved in life. If you run such risk, you may win, you may lose: but you WILL own
this world if you can begin all again!
o Listen, that’s not all – never a word to one! If you speak a word about your rise and fall to someone, you would be
accusing yourself and will not be worthy of the world.
Questions & Answers
1. What is pitch-and-toss?
2. Why does the poet ask us to be gamblers?
3. What should we do when we fail at gambling?
4. Explain, “and never breathe a word about your loss.”

Stanza 6

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”;
Meaning

o Force your heart – Encourage the mind

o Nerve – Mental strength
o Sinew – Physical strength
o Serve your turn
o Long after they are gone – Long after we have lost our strength
o When there is nothing in you
o Will – Will-power
o Hold on – Stay strong

Questions & Answers

1. How are we supposed to serve our turn long after our heart, nerve and sinew are gone?
2. Why is will important in our lives?
 Stanza 7

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;
Meaning

o Talk with crowds

o Virtue – The noble qualities in us
o Or walk with kings
o Common touch
o Foes
o All men count with you
o but none too much

Questions & Answers

1. For whom is the advice in the first line best imparted?

2. Why is it difficult for those people to keep their virtue?
3. Who do usually hurt us?
4. When do loving friends turn out to be enemies?
5. Explain the last line, “If all men can count with you, but none too much.”

Stanza 9

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!
Meaning

o Unforgiving minute – No minute will excuse you for wasting a second of it; time will not forgive you if you wasted a
second of it.
Questions & Answers

1. Why is a minute said to be unforgiving?

2. With what should we fill each second?
3. Who own the earth?