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 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.
A couple of thoughts/learnings from this -
-
In this age of social media, it is so easy to be a critic and appear cooler, smarter and wiser than the man in the arena - but it doesn’t matter. If we really cared about the subject, we would be the person working on it and fixing the problems (reminds me of the recent Parker Conrad incident, all the critics of Sachin Tendulkar and more recently Roger Federer).
-
If you must fail, fail while daring greatly - being who you are and loving what you do.
Inspiring stuff!!
Kaushik Rangadurai
Code. Learn. Explore