Tom Yates on Frank Underwood

"The impossible made possible.
The thing no one else dares to do, that everyone says can't be done.
Imagine a boy standing on the shores of the Charleston Harbor.
Two miles away, a faint line on the horizon, is Fort Sumter.
All the other boys say it's impossible to swim there.
But this one boy thinks it can be done.
The others gasp as he kicks off his shoes, plunges into the water.
They watch with shock as he grows farther from the shore.
They whisper to each other solemnly, 'He'll drown. He'll never make it.'
'No, he'll turn around when it gets too hard.'
"The water was cold and the current was strong.
With every stroke, the boy had to fight off chills
and battle the tide rushing in from the sea.
Anyone watching him, as his schoolmates did from the shore,
barely making out a tiny speck moving slowly across the water,
would've thought he stood no chance.
But that thought never entered the boy's mind.
His muscles ached, his heart pounded,
but the water would not defeat him."
"The ramparts of the fort were still a mile away.
But he had reached the point of no return.
Turning back was no longer an option."
"What drove Napoleon to keep marching toward Moscow?
Or Hannibal to cross the Alps?"
"What kept a young Frank Underwood swimming onward?
And what kept him from drowning?"
"On another day, with warmer water, with the current carrying him,
he might have made it.
But on this day, he would only make it halfway before his arms gave out
and the numbness overtook him, before the coast guard
pulled him out of the water despite his protests.
Was he reckless? Was he foolish?
Possibly.
One thing can't be denied, however.
What others saw as impossible, he refused to believe as such.
The water proved him wrong. He fell far short of the other shore.
And yet he made the attempt.
And that... is everything."