Friday, April 15, 2005

Reminder: The Man In The Arena

Today, at my daughters' elementary school, there was a girl who sang "God Bless America" in front of several classes. I was sitting in the back of the room, listening to this brave young girl, and watching a group of boys in front of me laughing and covering their ears.

Cowards, not brave enough to do what she was doing, but bold enough to sit in the back of the room and mock her effort. It reminded me that at any given show, there will always be those cowardly critics in the audience. Nothing personal. It's just a fact of life...


The Man In The Arena
by Theodore Roosevelt (From a speech delivered in Paris in 1910)

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.


The happy ending to the above story is that the brave soldier on stage got a huge round of applause following her solo singing performance.

Her critics, of course, continued to mock all of the remaining performers.

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