If by Rudyard Kipling

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!

Did my daily runs on blogs today and I came across a new entry from Sweatlee. This poem, I knew this poem ever since I was 11. It was pasted on my brother's study table wall. When he left for his studies, I sat on his table everyday to do my homework and studies. And everyday I would read through this poem before I start my work to give myself motivation and inspirations. I read it everyday, till I could remember every stanza perfectly and memorized every word by heart. 

At that moment, I was too young to understand the meaning of some words, but I knew that this poem had always been encouraging and motivating. When I was much younger, I wasn't as smart as anyone thought I was. I wasn't only stupid, I was also dumb. And when you are dumb, you get no where. You sit right at the bottom of everyone's hearts. Nobody gives a damn about what you say or think, because you are stupid and you can't think right. 

And I asked God, why do you have to make me so stupid? Nobody like stupid girls. Why did you make me so skinny and sickly till everyone think I'm too weak to do anything? Dear God, why do people hate me? Why do they like to make me feel so inferior and think that I could be belittled? Am I just a nothing on this Earth? And then I thought, if only I were smarter, people would like me.

This poem gave me so much strength that it somewhat become like my motto in life. At that moment, the only thing I could thought of was to have people to like me and to be the smartest.

And I did, I excelled and it proved my theory right. People like to befriend you if you are smart. If you are not, you are all on your own. Even till the extend that they would try to make your face disappear from this Earth. I gained one thing which I really wanted, but I gave up so much more in order to get it. Let's just say that every success you made bound to have its sacrifices. This is common and I bet everyone have been through this. It was not easy for me to have survived what I've been through. And it's really a waste that I've thrown all those sacrifices into the deep ocean because I'm not as strong as I used to be. It's even more shameful that I've forgotten this poem entirely. Only up till today when I read Sweatlee's blog, I suddenly remembered that I know this poem a very long time ago. And that it had such a great impact on me. 

I was only 11, and I could understand the heart of this poem. But it's a shame for me to say that, I don't get it now. I'm nothing as described in that poem, I have achieved not a single variable. And I wonder, when would the day come that I would grow up and be a man! A man as in the ideal human being. 

As human, we might not be perfect, but yet, we could be ideal.