“It is Not the Critic Who Counts”
People will laugh.
If you ever try to change your life (and I mean ever) you will be mocked. When you step outside expectations of you friends and family, they will ask who you think you are. They will make no small point of describing your failures. They will share with you every reason why you are making a poor decision.
What are you supposed to say in response?
It is not the critic who counts.
People will beg for consistency.
Above all else, they want you to behave how you have always behaved. Insecure people will strike you down the minute you deviate from the agreed upon path. It doesn’t matter if you’re improving yourself. Now you are reminding them of their poor position.
Rather than join you, they will throw rocks.
It is not the critic who counts.
People will push you.
You must push back.
You were born to be a doer, not a critic, born to be in the action, not on the sidelines, born to take risks, not seek safety. You will not be deterred by the rocks, by the jeers of the crowd.
You were made for The Arena.
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.
