A warning to the naive - what follows are my personal opinions; please proceed with caution.

The Internet has made a business out of nearly goddamn everything, including the act of motivating the masses. No matter how oppressed and lost your soul is, there’s always a podcast or youtube video out there, tailored just for you, to help you see the bright side and climb out of the dumps.

More often than naught, motivational speakers sound phoney and repetitive, peddling the same crap over and over again in different forms and shapes (remember “The Secret”?). What’s worst, people are willing to waste countless amounts of hard-earned cash and, most sadly, precious hours of their lives listening to their content.

I believe that the best type of motivational content was inked centuries ago, and it’s about time we bring it back to light. It feels genuine, inspired, written by people who didn’t give two cents about fleeting fame or youtube monetization.

Out of many brilliant verses penned by the poets of yesteryears, I find the following two to be highly potent whenever I need a dose of motivation:

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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!

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Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

BY ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’ en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

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I wrote down and pasted the former poem (IF) on my study desk - where it remained during most of my high school and university life. It helped me persevere through some of the toughest times of my life. You can watch Sir Michael Caine read it and explain what it means to him.