Sometimes it's easy to feel overwhelmed by events around us. This is being human. The challenge is to put that overwhelm aside and step forwards, daring greatly.
I have been reminded over the last few days, not just through Brené Brown, but though a personal experience, of Theodore Roosevelt, who in his now famous speech said,
“The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities All these are marks, not of superiority but of weakness.”
He then went on to say what is now widely known as the ‘Man in the arena’ quote.
"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."
