I was born in the Philippines, moved to Michigan when I was seven, went back for the last stretch of high school, then spent my college years in Cebu studying Chemical Engineering at the University of San Carlos. Back and forth twice before I turned twenty-three.
I didn't understand at the time what that was teaching me. You get dropped somewhere you're the outsider, you figure it out, and right about when you've figured it out you get moved again. What it teaches you is that you can start over. That's most of what I've leaned on since.
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 (1849 - 1903)
When you run businesses, the hard stretches come whether you planned for them or not. When I'm in one, I go back to this poem. The last two lines especially. I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. That isn't a decoration for me. It's what I actually believe about how life works.
1. Master of Fate, Captain of the Soul
The first thing the poem says is that I'm the one steering. Circumstances happen, plenty of them I never chose, but what I did next was mine. Most of whatever I've built came out of decisions I made on purpose, not luck that happened to find me.
And I truly believe that once we take responsibility for our own lives, that's the point where we actually become adults. Not a birthday. Not a job title. That.
2. Resilience in the Face of Adversity
The second one is about what hard things do to you. Henley writes about taking the bludgeonings of chance with his head bloody but unbowed. I've never had a season where nothing went wrong. What I've had are seasons where the wrong things made me better, and I only ever saw it afterward, never while it was happening.
Marcus Aurelius put it better than I can, in the Meditations: what stands in the way becomes the way. Ryan Holiday built a whole book on that line and I read it, but the line is nearly two thousand years old. We spend a lot of energy going around obstacles, not realizing the obstacle is part of the path. Sometimes it IS the path.
3. Making the Most of Today
The third is simpler. Life is short, and today is the only part of it I can do anything about. Being captain of my soul doesn't count for much if I'm not steering today. Tomorrow gets built out of what I pick right now, which is either encouraging or uncomfortable depending on the kind of day I'm having.
So it's more than a poem to me. It's closer to a way of standing. I'm the master of my fate and the captain of my soul, and on the days I forget that, reading it again puts me back.
