I spent a long time working to keep up the facade of being someone who had it all together.
I could handle it. I could weather the storms. I could put on the show when I had to. Everything was always fine.
I didn’t complain because that would make me a victim.
I just kept to myself in my safe zone because that’s where I could keep it together the best…hiding from anything that might expose me, or hilite my shortcomings.
There is risk in exposing ourselves, in trying something new, and putting our most tender self out in the world to be seen and judged by others.
The more I’ve shown up and faced the risk, the more I admire others who have done the same.
It’s hard and it’s brave to take that kind of risk.
I lean heavily on the famous “Man In The Arena” quote by Theodore Roosevelt, and several times I have felt so grateful that he took the time to speak the words, so that I could pull strength from them.
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.
Being a horse girl I literally visualize a man in a riding arena, with the crowd watching him while he is risking himself by exposing himself…but trying so damn hard to show up. He is falling down in the dirt, bloody and sweaty, with a huge smile because he is doing his thing, even if it’s not pretty or perfect, he knows he is getting somewhere because he is showing up and trying.
We are not alone in our errors and shortcomings, “there is no effort without them” and there is honour in failing when you are daring greatly, then your place is with the others who have also dared, not with the “cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat”.
Take your focus off the critics.
Join the doers of deeds.
Be the man in the arena.