At the age of 25, the poet and critic William Ernest Henley lay in hospital suffering from an illness that had kept him bedridden for three years. He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bone at the age of 12 and his left foot was amputated just below the knee. He’d just been told that he’d lose his right foot, too. It was in these circumstances that he composed ‘Invictus’, the poem that ends with the following verse:
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.
Those are words to live by — and, indeed, Nelson Mandela did just that. In his darkest hours, when he was rotting away on Robben Island, he would recite Henley’s poem from memory in order to boost his morale.
As 2009 draws to a close, I like to think I am the master of my fate.
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