"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
--from Teddy Roosevelt's "Citizenship in the Republic" speech at the Sorbonne in France, April 23, 1910
***
Sometimes it's easy for us to get bogged down by the negativity in our lives. We always want to do more, to do better, to be the best of ourself that we can be. We want to schedule our lives to be of the utmost productivity. Or at least more productive than the girl in the next cubicle.
Don't listen to the critics. Don't get jealous of the girl down the hall who has it waaay more together than you do (disclosure: she's doesn't). Do it your way. Because you're the one in the arena. You're the one that is making the mistakes, learning, growing, failing, overcoming. It's easy to point fingers when looking in from the outside. But really, it's your arena, not theirs.
I have a lot of visions. For myself, my career, my personal life. For this blog and my writing. And I get frustrated a lot. I get frustrated with how slowly it all seems to take. How I never seem to get there when I want to be there. Hell, after I quit my job and took off to Asia for three months, I thought I would never, ever, ever again be tethered to a desk. And 18 months after I got back, I'm working a corporate lifestyle to finance my next adventure.
But you know what? It's okay. I'll get there. And sometimes, getting there doesn't mean making a string of rash decisions to get my ass out the door. For me, who has no problem making rash decisions, sometimes it means pulling hard on the reins and staying put for a while. To find out what it really feels like to be in the arena. To know what mistakes look and feel like.
What does your arena look like? Mine currently looks like a stack of unwrapped Christmas presents and unbaked cookies.
--from Teddy Roosevelt's "Citizenship in the Republic" speech at the Sorbonne in France, April 23, 1910
***
Sometimes it's easy for us to get bogged down by the negativity in our lives. We always want to do more, to do better, to be the best of ourself that we can be. We want to schedule our lives to be of the utmost productivity. Or at least more productive than the girl in the next cubicle.
Don't listen to the critics. Don't get jealous of the girl down the hall who has it waaay more together than you do (disclosure: she's doesn't). Do it your way. Because you're the one in the arena. You're the one that is making the mistakes, learning, growing, failing, overcoming. It's easy to point fingers when looking in from the outside. But really, it's your arena, not theirs.
I have a lot of visions. For myself, my career, my personal life. For this blog and my writing. And I get frustrated a lot. I get frustrated with how slowly it all seems to take. How I never seem to get there when I want to be there. Hell, after I quit my job and took off to Asia for three months, I thought I would never, ever, ever again be tethered to a desk. And 18 months after I got back, I'm working a corporate lifestyle to finance my next adventure.
But you know what? It's okay. I'll get there. And sometimes, getting there doesn't mean making a string of rash decisions to get my ass out the door. For me, who has no problem making rash decisions, sometimes it means pulling hard on the reins and staying put for a while. To find out what it really feels like to be in the arena. To know what mistakes look and feel like.
What does your arena look like? Mine currently looks like a stack of unwrapped Christmas presents and unbaked cookies.
No comments:
Post a Comment