within a few contexts over the last days I have talked about "being the boss". Maybe, once upon a time, I wanted to be a boss of something but that was because I didn't know myself well enough to know I am not a boss.
I am bossy, but that's something else. Really, I'm a helper, just like Huckle is a helper in Busytown (I've always wanted to live there)

Today I said "I only want to be in charge of myself" and that inspired me to re-read a poem that hit me like a tonne of bricks the first time I read it, aged 14:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

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.