“It’s Not the Critic Who Counts”

It’s very easy to be critical. That can mean being critical of oneself and even being critical of others, whether that be strangers or closest friends. It’s something that we are all guilty of.

I’ve been critical of myself since I was a kid. I was raised that way. I wasn’t raised on encouragement. That wasn’t something that came up naturally in my family. It was always that “constant drip” of criticism…?

I was the critic for a really long time. Mostly of myself, thinking that I was always wrong for the things I was doing. But what I came to realize was that if I don’t want people to be critical of me, then I can’t in return be critical towards them.?

There are plenty of critics in our lives that can tell us to do everything and how we should improve. But, a lot of those very critics aren’t able to fully do what we do ourselves.

It’s not about being the smartest in the room, but it’s about being the one who is always putting in the effort to continuously grow.?

I have a passage from a speech that hangs on my wall over my desk in my home office.

It reads,?“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.”

?That notable passage is referred to as “The Man In The Arena” which was a part of?Citizenship in a Republic,?the title of a speech given by Theodore Roosevelt, former President of the United States, at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910.?

What President Roosevelt is saying here is about doing your best, accepting your failures, not being ruled by external (or internal) criticisms, and being mindful of spending your thought and effort in virtuous pursuits.?

It’s an important and stoic message that when you live and act with purpose and virtue, you can have inner peace even when those efforts fail.?

Teddy Roosevelt has given us a constant reminder to ignore the noise, buckle our chinstraps, and battle through whatever comes our way.

Always be the one putting in the consistent work and believing in the mission that you’re on. Don’t let the ones who are critical get you down.?

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