“It is not possible to fight beyond your strength, even if you strive.” --Homer in Iliad.

Not even faith can raise strength beyond its limits. Faith is the belief one can do it, not the action of doing or accomplishing. Faith accompanies a process, may boost and maintain confidence, but not necessarily having it done. You can believe something can be done and have it done, but then you can also disbelieve in something and it still is done, so there may be no difference. It’s all a matter of the process of doing in which has bearing on the outcome. And that is fate, the kind of fate that is shaped by the choices in which we make. Of the things not of our control, faith is a belief, not the influence, of the process to the outcome.

Strength from within is limited. In one respect, strength is an accumulation of lived experiences, like confidence being built from every success or overcoming of some ordeal or even simpler things. Strength can be accumulated also from trials of something and is a process that builds each time. Maybe physical strength is similar in which you can work to get stronger. In terms of physicality, Homer is right. It’s not like one can lift a heavy object beyond what’s humanly possible. The same would have to apply to emotional, mental, intellectual or anything in any arena in terms of strength. There might even be some strength reserved in which a quantity is unknown to where it came from.

In many ways, the strength of others gives you strength. Their strength is a catalyst for your striving and your fighting. Definitely, others increase your strength, more than you would have mustered up on your own. Though you may not be able to do anything and everything, it is something more than what you have alone.

I am strong. I am strong because I have to be strong. If no one else is going to be strong for me, then I have to be. No matter how hard the winds blow, no matter how much ice it throws at me, no matter how cold I am, no matter how tired I am, I forward myself. How far can my strength carry me through the blizzard? How much can I take? How much can I endure? Where is it that I am going? If I keep going, is it any better than it is? Why is the path getting so much harder? I’ll fall, but I crawl. Why? Strive if there is something worth fighting for. Is there? Do I have the strength to endure this kind of suffering? I am stronger than a whole lot of others. I bear so much. No one sees it. It is hidden. I blanket it out of sight. I want to stop exhausting myself. I want to rest. I want to feel good. I want it to stop. I want to recover. When will the bleeding stop? I want it to heal. I’ll stay strong.