something meaningful i once read

We too need to be told that man is but a limited and contingent creature, subject to sudden disrupting forces. Success is not finally to be measured by fame or material prosperity. Human greatness consists ultimatley in nobly excepting the responsibilty of being what we are; human freedom, in the personal working out of our fate in terms appropriate to ourselves. Though we may be innocent, we are all potentially guilty, because of the germ of self-sufficiency and arrogance in our nature. We must remember always that we are only man and be modest in our own conceits. Our place in the total pattern of the cosmos is only finite. That is not to say that it may not be glorious, whatever our circumstances, we can achieve and endure through to essentail greatness. It is not what our fate has in store for us that matters, but what we can do with it when it comes. There may be suffering, but no abiding hopelessness. No power, no imposition, no catastraphe can uproot the personal dignity of each human being. The seeming caprice and unfairness of life, striking some down and pampering others, is only the beginning of The Great Encounter. Both the choice and the destiny are ours.