I like to express myself at work. If I had my druthers, I would start every day blaring a song that fit the mood of the day. However, I was never able to put together a large enough sound system. So I found another method.
I started digging up quotes to fit the issues we were facing. I then plastered the quotes all over the office. One day my safety manager brought me this one from Teddy Roosevelt. It immediately became my favorite because it expressed what the project team faced every day.
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
Excerpt from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic”
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910
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.
Even though the words are written in a masculine tense, they apply to women as well. Women should have the courage to stand up for what we believe in, to go for what we want to and to make things happen. This is what life is about.
However many women were not raised to believe we can or should go into the arena; that women can be bold or courageous. But if we don’t go into the arena, then only men are the doers of great deeds and only they know the triumph of high achievement. We return to a paternalistic society.
The only way women will ever come into their own and attain their equality is by entering the arena and daring to strive valiantly.
Empowered women enter the arena.
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Dot, great post!
I LOVE this Man in the Arena quote. It’s what Brene Brown’s book, Daring Greatly is based on.
Here’s one of the beliefs I have written on a notecard, that I aspire to live by:
My courage and commitment are MUCH stronger than my fear.