Invictus: The Unconquered

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul !

How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing else is ready to inspire? Where do we get the confidence from ?

The other day I was watching the Australian open final between Murray and Federer. Match is in the final set, Murray was down for almost 3/4 of the match, he is out of confidence and nothing is going his way. Who will inspire him then ? The crowd cheering is not helping either. His team, coach, mother (he doesn’t have a girl friend yet it seems !) all look more tensed than himself.
What he got is himself, just himself, he must exceed his own expectations !
He has to fight for his inspiration all alone. Come’on !!!! Come’on … he shouted.
The game progressed and he was able to get a winner out of his best shots (forehand). That shot brought him back on the track. He conquered his confidence ! “Allow yourself to expect more of yourself “.
(Though he lost the game to Federer, it was in the end, not because of loss of confidence but of competence )

How do we inspire everyone around us : lead by example.
How do we inspire a team ? For this, I found a very emphatic line from one of the superb movies I watched in the recent times – Invictus.

“His people wanted a leader. He gave them a champion”

The movie was based on how Nelson Mandela and his life (including the 27 year imprisonment) has inspired the captian of the South African Rugby Team to win the Rugby World Cup 1995 ! A real time inspiration !! Truly is.
Mandela also shares with the captian of the team that a poem, Invictus, had been inspiring to him during his time in prison, helping him to
“stand when all he wanted to do was lie down”.

I was unable to contain my turbulent mind after watching the movie, googled up the bacground and got this :
“Invictus” is a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). It was written in 1875 and first published in 1888[1] in Henley’s Book of Verses.

Invictus is the Latin for “Unconquered” !!
At the age of 12, Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. In 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. In 1875 he wrote the “Invictus” poem from a hospital bed. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until the age of 53.

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.

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