"If"

"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,

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;

Or watch the things you gave your life to b r o k e n ,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
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!"

-my favourite poem in the english syllabus, by Rudyard Kipling. I remember having to recite the entire thing for an English oral presentation in F3 (the above is not the complete poem) and it probably left some kind of impact on me.

"Be a man"

We all have our own interpretations of what a real man is. We all want to be who we ought to be. But what makes a man? The deep voice? The gargantuan ego? The enormous strength? The leg hair(and other hairy sections of the human anatomy)? This poem taught me a valuable lesson, that while a man is always a male, a male need not necessarily be a MAN.

And how, personally, there is still much to learn.