Responding to the Challenges in our Lives

One of my wishes for you this year is that you will become increasingly aware that, no matter what unexpected challenges life brings, you are ultimately in control of how you respond to those challenges.

People and circumstances cannot truly make us angry, or discouraged or frustrated. These are reactions that we have the power to control.

This poem, which also inspired Nelson Mandela when he was in captivity, is a reminder to all of us that in so many ways, we create our own lives – and our own happiness -- even in the most troubled of times.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be 

For my unconquerabe 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 mistress of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley (adapted)