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

Have you ever thought that struggles are exactly what we need in our lives?… All our life we have been hearing from elders about successful people who struggled to carve their way to success that they see in their life today. I believe it is not only true for those successful people but also for everyday common man who has to fight all the odds to get his afternoon meal for that matter.

Success is never easy to come. We struggle hard to achieve something yet all our hardwork ends up into a naught at times. Sometimes, we get a feeling that we are about to kiss the food that eventually leads us into complacency, hence losing focus and fail in the end. We cry, we curse our fate but forget one thing that if success is yours, so is the failure. You own it you are responsible for it. Although, this may not be true sometimes as both could be a consequence of something else that was never in your control. Consequent to the failures we feel so dejected that often other opportunities also get obscured. Trust me, these are our trying times Believe in ourselves, no body can win over your own will. This is the time when we have to negotiate with our self, get up and fight back even harder.

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. Invictus ~William Ernest Henley.

Long back, I came across a very beautiful story that sets a wonderful example, as how we get used to failures and do not notice the opportunity grasped in your hands.

When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes, one book was saved. The book not being so valuable, a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers. The book wasn't very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the "Touchstone"!

The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold. So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.

He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold - throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea. The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. One day, however, about mid afternoon, he picked up a pebble and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along, he still threw it away.

So it is with opportunity। Unless we are vigilant, it's easy to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand and it's just as easy to throw it away.

As everyone, I have seen many failures in my life and will keep meeting them cause they have to teach me what struggle is। Yet, I have learnt one thing from my experience that however difficult the situation appears to be, prepare yourself for the worst and then you have nothing to be afraid about। This is your life and it is only you who have to fight to grab hold of success. Give a heart thump when you achieve it and move head to a new one and keep doing it till you fall flat on your ass.