What if “If” matched Mental Models? Here is my interpretation, with ChatGPT as my helper to make rewrite it poetically. Credits to respective authors for the inspiration and content.

If you can know the map is not the land, And redraw truth with steady, patient hand;

If you can mark the limits of your sphere, Admit your ignorance, yet hold no fear;

If you can strip a puzzle to its bones, And build from first foundations, stones on stones;

If you can ask what follows after this, And trace tomorrow’s cost in what you miss;

If you can live in probabilities, Not clutch at certainty that never is;

If you can turn a problem on its head, Avoid the traps where others’ footsteps bled;

If you can trust that error rules the day, And malice rarely blocks the honest way;

If you can grant another’s point of view, And see their sight as valid, just as true;

If you can give the kindness you would take, And weave the bonds that only giving makes;

If you can work though entropy will rise, And order fades before your very eyes;

If you can push through friction, weight, and stone, And stir inertia with your will alone;

If you can find the lever’s hidden place, And move the earth with but a child’s embrace;

If you can light the match to kindle change, And spark the habits habit would estrange;

If you can serve as catalyst for flame, And help another rise to do the same;

If you can blend the metals of your mind, And strength in difference learn at last to find;

If you can run though stillness bids you rest, Yet pause when quiet serves your spirit best;

If you can see the system as a whole, Each action linked by feedback’s constant role;

If you can move with caution, knowing well A single drop may cause the tide to swell;

If you can guard the niche that suits your frame, And not exhaust yourself in every game;

If you can shield the core of who you are, And keep your essence safe from ruin’s scar;

If you can learn from patterns long preserved, Not chase the wheel where others’ hands have swerved;

If you can see that trust is how we thrive, That cooperation keeps our kind alive;

If you can stand where hierarchy is sound, Yet tear it down when rot has spread around;

If you can shape incentives true and fair, For misaligned rewards breed deep despair;

If you can choose the harder path to grow, When easy comfort tempts your feet to slow;

If you can let the feedback guide your way, Not curse correction, but be taught each day;

If you can keep the balance, light yet frail, And know equilibrium is doomed to fail;

If you can seek the bottleneck and mend, Unblock the stream and lift the whole again;

If you can know that scale reshapes the laws, What works in small may break in larger cause;

If you can build a margin, guard, and shield, To weather chaos storms that strike the field;

If you can watch as churn remakes the ground, And still preserve the parts worth keeping sound;

If you can craft the algorithm true, And let clear steps lead safely guiding you;

If you can hold until momentum grows, And wait until the critical mass bestows;

If you can stand in wonder when you see Emergent order born from you and me;

If you can know division breaks the whole, And some things lose their essence when controlled;

If you can labor though returns decline, And grit your teeth though gains grow less with time;

If you can trust the larger sample’s word, Not haste to judge from whispers barely heard;

If you can see that randomness will reign, And not mistake the noise for patterned gain;

If you can know extremes will fade away, Regression draws them closer day by day;

If you can guard against the fatal flaw, For zero cancels all you thought you saw;

If you can see equivalence in form, And swap what matters not yet keep the norm;

If you can weigh the surface and its cost, Exposure gained, but vulnerability lost;

If you can climb beyond the nearest peak, And search for higher truths the bold ones seek;

If you can cherish scarcity’s command, And choose with wisdom where you make your stand;

If you can measure trade-offs, see them plain, And count the cost of every loss and gain—

Yours is the gift of clarity profound, And with it, peace and strength are always found.