It is not the critic who counts

Now, I don’t know which one I’m referring more to here, Theodore Roosevelt or Brene Brown.

To be complete and impeccable with my quotes, I am referring to Brene Brown, who opened her book Daring Greatly by referring to Theodore Roosevelt's speech:

“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.”

Those were the words of America’s 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy had a point there. To me personally it means that your primarily task is actually to show up for the job. You might not create a masterpiece, hey, you might actually just add to the pile. You also can fail miserably. But that doesn’t matter if first you dared to show up for the job. This is what I want to talk about today. It is normal if you failed a couple of times before you achieved anything. If you trigger mastery instead of one-time result, you might be more satisfied to your own surprise. But mastery takes time, repetition, a form of sportsmanship, patience, endurance and an ability to view things philosophically.

And so why it is not the critic who counts? What’s the goal of a creative work if it is not appreciated by somebody?

It is customary to say "nobody believes that...", "everybody will think that...", "they might say that...". So, who are those nameless theyS and everybodyS that we are so afraid of that we don't dare to do anything ? The invisible army that triggers the fear inside of us so big that we'd rather do something meaningless to ourselves because we are so afraid to be judged. Funny thing is most often that scary critic is the one who is only good at criticising any effort, any attempt to stand out, but doesn't do anything himself. Always seems so savvy about almost anything except getting his hands dirty and doing the job. To put in other words, Shota Rustaveli used to say:

“Everyone believes themselves a strategist, while observing the battle from the side”.

Because very few really know what it takes to walk the talk. But guess what, even when you are adding to the pile you already won because you showed up for the job. The result of your (first) job might be a monumental blunder. Do it again, and then once again, looking almost like a masochiste, but show up for that job. Don't think too much about it, don't think what they will think. They might actually change their minds too. If you want to create something so badly it rings inside your head, just show up for the job. At the risk of failing greatly, you might create your masterpiece.