From "If" to "What if ...?" to "If only ..."

 

For most of my English-speaking adult life, Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" has been one of my favourites.

As I grew older and began to look back over my many failings and missed opportunities, the "If" morphed into a questioning "What if ...?"

Now, in old age, it has transformed itself again into a resigned "If only ..."

If only indeed!