Strength

My heart is light.
My mind is clear.
My will is strong.

What is strength?

Is it mastering one's circumstances?
Starting a private business, never bowing the knee to a corporate master, forcing a path through society on one's own will and inertia, even if that means times of hunger, homelessness, and hopelessness?

Is it a refusal to be changed by one's circumstances?
Improving oneself and loving oneself regardless of the slings and arrows of fickle fate, even if it means never being able to improve your circumstances because it takes so much to stand above them?

Is strength mastering, or is it refusing to be mastered?

Swinging the sword, or standing fast behind the shield?

The sword can consume its wielder, so that he no longer recognizes himself amidst his constant, burning ambition. He becomes so afraid of the once-clinging vines of circumstance that he cannot understand when the battle is over, cannot rest.

The shield-bearer can become complacent, lazy. His healthy drive to create can atrophy as he devotes all energy to shutting out the world.

In the end, we must all find balance between the two, blazing our own trail through life, even as we stand firm against changes in our circumstances, resolving to constantly become a better person regardless of the burdens life gives us to bear.