Invictus
August 22nd 2011 marked the beginning of 6th year of fantastic and transformed life for me. Earlier I had crashed from riches to rags in terms of heath and ended up being in and out of a hospital for 18 long months. Thinking back now, I cannot say life was hell but it was teaching me a hard lesson.
I say transformed because I have stopped complaining. How has this helped? – Enhanced quality of life and happiness.
Last week I was participating in a training session and as the members of the audience were asked to say the one thing they love most, I said “Life itself”. I didn’t have to think much to say it as I have and will continue to enjoy everything about life.
Many a times it’s the seeming disasters in people’s lives that makes them stronger, pushes them hard and helps harness the “real power” inside them which would have never surfaced otherwise.
Here are some words from great people who believed and proved to the world “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else”:
“I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God”.– Helen Keller was an American author, political activist, andlecturer. She was the firstdeaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled, and was outspoken in her opposition to war. A member of the Socialist party of America and the Wobblies, she campaigned for women’s suffrage, worker’s rights and socialism, as well as many other leftist causes.
Harold Russel said, “There is no easy for formula for a Happy Living. Anyone who says he has one is either joking or lying. Even if I could, I have no desire or intention of putting forth any patented, neatly packaged recipe of my own. But there is one simple thought; I should like to pass on, if I may. It is no sure-fire prescription for happiness; it is not guaranteed to bring in any blue birds singing in your backyard. I offer it mainly because I found it can help prevent much vain regret and self defeat. It is not what you have lost but what you have left that counts. Too many of us squander precious energy, time, and courage dreaming of things that were and never can be again, instead of dedicating ourselves to realities and the heavy tasks of today”.
He was an Army instructor, and while training with the US 13th Airborne dvisionstateside in 1944, a defective fuse detonated an explosive he was handling while making a training film. As a result, he lost both hands and was given two hooks to serve as hands. Russell slowly fought his way back to radiant triumph and victory in life. He played a lead role the film “Best years of our lives” for which he won two of Hollywood’s Prized Academy Awards. He created a world of difference to a lot of physically challenged people by going around on lecture tours, speaking on radio etc.
The Poem below is very popular. I could have Googled, cut and pasted it here. However it touched me so much that I typed it word by word from a book
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as a pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods maybe
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have never winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning 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.
Willaim Earnest Henley wrote this poem “Invictus” when he was in a hospital bed in the year 1875 with an amputated leg and was being treated for tuberculosis for 20 months undergoing 20 surgeries on the other leg during that period.
This poem has inspired all leaders and great minds of the likes of Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi & her father, and writers like Jeffrey Archer. The line “bloody, but unbowed” was the Daily Mirror’s headline the day after the 7 July 2005 London bombings.
“Invictus” is a Latin word meaning Invincible, Unconquered.
