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Teachers & SchoolsStrength and Endurance
If "If" is anything, it is a poem about endurance, about persevering, even in hard times. And we don't mean just literal endurance, as in the final stanza's discussion of distance running. There is also emotional, or figurative endurance—all that business about holding on, and finding the will to continue, even when one's body feels like it's about to break. In many ways, "If" is a poem about strength, and at times it seems like its underlying theme is "only the strong survive."