If You Can Keep Your Head

Growing up, I heard stories from my great uncle about life in pre WW2 Suva, Fiji, where he, my grandfather and their many siblings spent their childhood.

Like many families of that era, books were treasured possessions. They weren’t just entertainment. They were teachers, companions, and guides to life.

One book in particular stood out.

My great uncle George often spoke about a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s poem If that sat in the family home. It was a poem that was read, discussed, and reflected upon. The lessons it contained weren’t viewed as poetry alone. They were viewed as principles for living.

Years later, when I look at the philosophy behind The Everyday Way, I realise just how much of Kipling’s wisdom aligns with the lessons we teach through everyday bushcraft.

If You Can Keep Your Head

The poem opens with one of its most famous lines:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…

That single sentence could almost serve as the foundation of resilience.

Whether you’re lost in the bush, facing a crisis at work, dealing with conflict at home, or navigating one of life’s inevitable setbacks, the ability to remain calm is often the difference between success and failure.

This is exactly why we teach the STOP protocol:

Stop. Think. Observe. Plan.

When emotions are running high, the goal isn’t to react.

The goal is to regain control of your thinking.

Panic narrows options.

Calm creates them.

Self Aid Starts Between Your Ears

One of the five core skills of The Everyday Way is Self Aid.

Many people assume survival begins with bandages and first aid kits.

In reality, survival begins in the six inches between your ears.

Kipling understood this.

His poem repeatedly returns to the importance of emotional regulation, patience, and self-control.

The ability to trust yourself without becoming arrogant.

The ability to listen to criticism without being controlled by it.

The ability to stay steady regardless of circumstances.

These are not bush skills.

They are life skills.

And they are increasingly rare in a world that encourages instant reactions and emotional decision-making.

Triumph and Disaster

One of my favourite passages from If is this:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same…

What a powerful lesson.

Most of us are taught to fear failure.

Many of us are equally vulnerable to the dangers of success.

Failure can convince us to quit.

Success can convince us that we no longer need to learn.

Both are traps.

In The Everyday Way, we talk about stacking small wins and learning from setbacks.

A failed shelter teaches us something.

A knot that doesn’t hold teaches us something.

A fire that won’t light teaches us something.

Success and failure are both temporary.

The lesson remains.

The Mountain of Mastery

Kipling also writes about rebuilding after loss:

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…

Life has a habit of forcing us back to the start.

Careers change.

Relationships end.

Health challenges appear.

Plans fall apart.

The question is never whether hardship will come.

The question is whether we will begin again.

The Everyday Way teaches that mastery is not a destination.

It is a mountain climbed one camp at a time.

Sometimes you make progress.

Sometimes you slip.

Sometimes you need to descend before finding a better route.

What matters is that you continue climbing.

Hold Fast

There is a phrase we use often in Everyday Bushcraft: “Hold Fast”

It doesn’t mean charge ahead blindly.

It means remain steady.

Stay true to your values.

Continue moving forward despite uncertainty.

That idea echoes throughout Kipling’s poem.

Again and again, he speaks about endurance.

About perseverance.

About refusing to surrender to fear, ego, doubt, or despair.

These are timeless lessons.

Whether you’re building a shelter in the rain or rebuilding your life after a setback, the principle remains the same.

Hold fast.

The Everyday Way

More than a century has passed since Kipling wrote If, yet its lessons remain remarkably relevant.

The poem isn’t really about becoming tougher.

It’s about becoming steadier.

It’s about learning to remain grounded when circumstances try to pull you off balance.

It’s about developing character.

It’s about resilience.

It’s about becoming the kind of person who can keep their head when others are losing theirs.

My great uncle and grandfather may have first encountered those lessons in a small home in Suva, Fiji.

Today, we teach many of the same principles through The Everyday Way.

Not because they’re old.

But because they’re true.

The tools may change.

The challenges may change.

But the fundamentals remain.

Keep your head.

Hold fast.

Take the next step.

And keep moving forward.