Fortune is fighting against me

<< Fortune is fighting against me, and I shall not carry out her commands.

I refuse to submit to the yoke; nay rather, I shake off the yoke that is upon me, – an act which demands even greater courage.

The soul is not to be pampered; surrendering to pleasure means also surrendering to pain, surrendering to toil, surrendering to poverty.

Both ambition and anger will wish to have the same rights over me as pleasure, and I shall be torn asunder, or rather pulled to pieces, amid all these conflicting passions.

I have set freedom before my eyes; and I am striving for that reward. And what is freedom, you ask?

It means not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance;

it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.

And on the day when I know that I have the upper hand, her power will be naught.

When I have death in my own control, shall I take orders from her? >>

Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, 51,7

I love this letter by Lucilius.