If You Can Keep Your Sanity (Apologies to Kipling)

It’s been a long January, and I decided to write a poem modelled on Rudyard Kipling’s “If” — a poem that lends itself to offer stoic advice in a moral poem about resilience and integrity, in business. It’s a bit tongue in cheek, or as the British say cheeky, and it could certainly use an editor. 

 I hope you enjoy, for what it’s worth. 

If You Can Keep Your Sanity (Apologies to Kipling)

If you can work yet never sell your soul,
Nor let your paycheck name your only goal;
If you can give your craft its honest due,
And guard your peace from what it’s sold into;

If you can say “Not now” without offense,
And see through guilt’s cosmetic false pretense;
If you can hold your ground through others’ haste,
And keep your focus free from flattery’s taste;

If you can write each promise, word for word,
When gossip’s louder than the truth preferred;
If proof becomes your armor, neat and strong,
And quiet facts can right a cunning wrong;

If you can walk through politics with grace,
And read each motive in a smiling face;
If you can play the game, yet shun the play,
And keep your honor clean amid decay;

If you can serve your boss yet keep your range,
Esteem the seat, but never seek the change;
If friendship’s mask can never cloud your view,
And power’s lure finds nothing false in you;

If you can weave your network, wide and far,
Not just for gain, but knowing what you are;
If doors you open stand when luck retreats,
And safety waits beyond exhausted streets;

If you can close your ears to whispered spite,
And never let your name adorn their blight;
If silence shields your peace from others’ fire,
And quiet truth outlasts the loud and dire;

If you can draw the line when hours grow long,
And leave your desk though duty hums her song;
If you can sleep while unread emails breed,
And count your rest as wealth, not corporate need;

If you can bow when rank expects your praise,
Yet lift the low while others turn their gaze;
If soft respect defines your human creed,
And kindness triumphs where ambition feeds;

If you can shed the martyr’s weary crown,
And teach the work to run when you sit down;
If rule and rhythm blend beneath your lead,
So others thrive, not just your name succeed;

If you can speak your triumph, calm, not loud,
And let your deeds bear witness to the crowd;
If self-respect, not noise, secures your fame,
And humble pride outshines the office game;

If you can love your craft, yet keep aware
That profits weigh more hearts than any care;
If pink slips fall as sudden as the rain,
And still you rise, unbittered by the pain;

If you can save until the day you choose,
And walk away when staying means you lose;
If freedom waits within a modest sum,
You’ll find no tyrant where your courage comes;

If you can question “why” when others nod,
And see through rules that dull the mind of God;
If “thus we’ve done” cannot your will confine,
And thought remains the flame you call divine;

If you can guard your minutes as your gold,
And strike the hour as punctual, not cold;
If neither haste nor waste unbalance time,
You’ll own your life and owe no overtime;

If you can know that skill becomes a snare,
When every ask pulls more than you can bear;
If you can stay unseen when praise feels cheap,
And keep your gaze on depths where others sleep;

If you can learn though lectures dim the light,
And seek the wisdom born of your own fight;
If books and practice, not the slides, remain,
To feed the mind that outlasts fleeting gain;

If you can walk through glass and steel still whole,
And make no prison from a payroll role;
If calm endurance shields your working years,
And laughter answers deadlines, doubt, and fears;

Yours is the strength that no firm can command,
The steady heart no policy has planned;
Yours is the peace that no review can take —
And — what is more — you’ll keep your soul awake.