You Can Always Still Choose

“Even if we can’t beat fate, we can nevertheless give fortune a hard time.” -Plutarch writing about Cato The Younger

“A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.” -Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and The Sea

“I know you had nothing to do with the injustice that brought me to this jail, so I’m willing to stay here until I get out. But I will not, under any circumstances, be treated like a prisoner — because I am not and will never be powerless.” -Rubin “Hurricane” Carter speaking to a prison warden

“The last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you become the plaything to circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity…” -Viktor Frankl, book Man’s Search For Meaning

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. -Dylan Thomas, poem “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

Regardless of the overwhelming odds, the awful circumstances, and whatever else fate sends your way, you always have a choice about two things:

Your attitude and your response.

No one or no thing can ever take that away from you. Always remember this. For that’s where your true power lies.