Invictus

Can you guess what movie I watched tonight? I really enjoyed it. I was expecting to be bored out of my mind thanks to reviews from several friends but I liked it. It was inspiring. Maybe not 100% true to life but what movie ever is. After watching the movie I was curious about the poem that inspired Mandela so I googled it. I also wanted to know what invictus meant so I looked that up too. The word invictus is latin for "unconquered".

As I watched the movie there were two things that really stood out to me, the first was a line (sorry I can't quote it exactly) that basically said, "We must inspire people to be better than they think they can be." How often do we sell ourselves short because we don't believe we can accomplish something. We tell ourselves something is too hard or even impossible. I have seen some really amazing things from you ladies on this blog and I am sure there are a lot of amazing things I don't know about each of you. We can and we are doing hard things, which takes me to the second thing that stood out to me from the movie. The last two lines of the poem read:

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

No one else can make us do it. It is up to each one of us. That is not to say that we can't get support along the way but ultimately we choose how we react when the going gets tough.

Keep being amazing ladies, you can do hard things!

Here is the poem for anyone interested in reading it.

Invictus

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.

William Ernest Henley