Originally Posted by Mellowicious
It also sounds horribly condescending - patronizing, if you will.
All that insistence that you must be a Man - by inference a Great Man, a Perfect Man - when in reality, the world doesn’t even need the Perfect; it needs the Good.
See, I don't think that's what this poem is about at all. I think Kipling was not writing an aspirational, You go gettum, Boy Scout!", cheer, it's actually insights into what is really worthwhile. Many of the lines have three parts, the first two seemingly advice on noble behavior, but the third is a humbling qualifier. The important part isn't "keeping your head", it's being aware of what is really happening. For instance right out of the gate - "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you" - the important part is, "and blaming it on you". I have been in that situation many times, and it is extremely difficult to not react in kind, fighting and blaming, or even acting superior by trying to be above it. Seeing it for what it is, and not losing oneself in a mechanical stimulus-response feedback loop - that's a peek into enlightenment.

"If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;"
This is not aspirational advice, it is more like shared wisdom on what is truly important.

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:"
Not putting on an act pretending they are the same, but actually seeing and understanding it. If you can do that, it is a form of enlightenment, it's not an instruction on how to act. It's a form of consolation for when we fail. Perspective.

"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:"
More balm for the inevitable things that happen to us that we can't control, hopefully the way my life will look to me before my death. How much did it matter? Did I learn anything from the life that happened to me? Objectivity.

I see this poem as a testament to the unsung stuff of a good life, instead of the usual list of accomplishments - wealth, security, power, a legacy... no, what is most meaningful is the awareness of life as it happens, not what life is added up to.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller