Beautiful Words

A friend shared this paragraph with me this morning, and I think it's probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. I've been really struggling this past week... I'll see about sharing the story with y'all soon. But since the last post I did, I've been battling between feeling like an outright failure, and doggedly refusing to be defeated; it's an interesting limbo to be caught in. The paragraph below really hit home and caused me to get out of my funk and start refocusing again. In fact, I liked the blurb so much, that I printed it out in huge letters and taped it up where I can see it every single morning...

"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 this his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

~Theodore Roosevelt