YOU'RE ALWAYS IN CHARGE OF YOU.

You're the master of your fate and the captain of your soul. While your character is formed by circumstances, your own desires can do much to shape those circumstances. Thus, you have the power over the formation of your own character.

Nature is always at work around you. Your character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives you love and hate, jealousy and reverence. You have the power to choose which impulse you will follow.

You can at any time decide to alter the course of your life. No one can ever take that away from you. The greatest power you possess is the power to choose. You're the master of your joys and your sorrows.

A Psalm of Life

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!—

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,—act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.