Preparing for the Arena

At an early age I fell in love with the famous "Man in the Arena" speech of Teddy Roosevelt. I took to it and tried to let it seep into my bones, into my being. What's interesting, is looking back, that was easier to do at a young age. At 17, these words gave me strength and courage. I haven't forgotten the words, but perhaps I have allowed the importance of them to become an afterthought? I'm not quite sure, but that'll be for some personal reflection!

"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."

Every time I read it I get chills and my heart races a bit. A deeper conversation about this is for another day, because today I'm connecting this to another thought.

This thought isn't necessarily unique to Epictetus, but it is what I was reading that made me think about it...

"...nor do men become heroes overnight. We must endure a winter training, and can't be dashing into situations for which we aren't yet prepared."

Life presents moments that require our own heroism. It calls us to enter the arena and face the challenges that await. I think these arenas are presented to us throughout our life. I think we all have likely seen the invitation to an arena, sometimes we entered and sometimes perhaps we didn't. I also think it's likely that we don't recognize other arenas or invitations. But they will come - again. Maybe not the same one - I know I missed one of my arena's. I didn't recognize that I was being called to it until after it was gone. It haunted me for years, and still to this day causes pain (I'm working on that). But I think I learned this lesson, or at least was prepared to learn it because of that...

Our duty, to ourselves, is to prepare from as early as possible to be a person of character that can answer the call to our arena. Our duty is to enter a "winter of training" to build ourselves into the hero that we will have the opportunity to be. So that when the arena's invitation comes, we can enter with courage. We can dare greatly. We can leave the timid soul of who we were in the dust of who we are becoming.