My past doesn't define me.
我的过去不能定义我。
我不需要剧本,我书写自己的故事。
I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.