I have a distinct memory of my grandfather asking me to memorize this poem "IF" by Rudyard Kipling when I was younger.
He offered to give me some amount of money, that seemed astronomical by my standards of allowance.
However, it was not the true gift as I reflected later in life. After his passing, listening to a song by a band I recognized in the lyrics some familiarity therein.
Indeed, the lyrics were lines from the very poem he asked me to memorize and recite.
I didn't make it through the recitation completely.
I now realize that this poem, not the money, was the true gift; the gift of wisdom.
I will copy it now from a document where I had transcribed it so that you may read it if you like...
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 imposters 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,
