Before I started the Ro’s Words of Encouragement blog last November, I sent out my Weekend Words posts through e-mail to a group of friends, co-workers and clients. I still send those e-mails every Friday, but since starting the blog I also post the Weekend Words here. I am trying to go back through my older Weekend Words posts, the ones that were written before the blog existed, and share them with my blog readers. So although the below post is in the Weekend Words category, it is not this week’s official Weekend Words post. The below Weekend Words was originally published via e-mail on May 14, 2010:
The last few weeks’ e-mails have been of a more personal nature, with my daughter’s graduation and Mother’s Day. I appreciated the tremendous response that these personal stories received.
This week, we get back to business. These difficult and uncertain times often leave us wondering what the next step is. It’s easy – the next step is to take a step and see where it leads you. Like Baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra famously said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
In order to succeed, we must first get in the arena.
The Man in 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 deed 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.”
-Theodore Roosevelt, April 23, 1910
Have a great weekend,
Ro