A Word To The Critics

"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 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 and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

President Theodore Roosevelt

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

These words echo daily in my mind as I look back. I won't lie and say that I have been the greatest of men, though often times I have felt like the least of them. I have always desired to be the next great champion.... the next great hero..., but as my days continue and the more I experience the less of a hero I want to be. I have no more desires for fame or glory. I have no desire to be honored in the halls of heroes.... No. I just want to be known as a good man, a loving and faithful husband, and a father a man can look back on his childhood and be proud of. It is something I have fallen short of every day. I'm not the man I want to be or that my wife and son deserve to have, but there is no critic other than my own conscience who has the right to point out how I have stumbled.

The truth is it is easy to see where I have stumbled. It takes no great eye to see where I fail. But the test of a good critic and a true friend is by the way they can spot your worth, even when you can't.

I have accomplished a lot of what I always dreamed of as a boy. I have come farther than most that dreamed of the same things, but it was a long and hard road, and the journey is far from done. To judge me and tell me I cannot is only the encouragement I need to get up and try harder. The ecouragement to quit will always go unheeded, but the encouragement to get up and fight harder I can never hear enough. I have reached the point in my life where the critics voice is no longer heard; a point where the only sounds I hear are the sounds of those who have held up my hands when I've grown weary. "Fight on" they say. "Don't quit now" they say. "You're almost there."

What we must teach our children is that life truly is an arena. It is a fight. One that never ends. For a boy to grow up and become a man he must be made of grit. He must be honorable, intelligent, and a scrapper when he needs to be. He must know when to use his wit and how. He must know when to scrap and why. He must know what honor truly is. Finally, he must know that he must live with the choices that he's made. Because, when it all comes down to it, it's not the critic who counts, it's the man.

Valkyrie