https://makersplace.com/numa/invictus-1-of-1-27478/
This is a sold work. But it is one of my favorites and sort of portrays how I mostly think about life . I strongly believe that we are born and are given as we grow capabilities as raw materials to face challenges. Now how we use those raw materials is free will - there is nothing that gets thrown at us we are not equipped to handle - it is just we tend to under-assume our own strength.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
~ Henley
This is a poem that has walked with me throughout my life and carried me through