A sunrise that reminds me to “Dare Greatly!”

I’ve been listening to a book as I drive back and forth to teach each day. Right now, it is a book called ‘Daring Greatly’ by Brene Brown. It is all about living in our imperfection and living in vulnerability with those we are closest to, and hopefully, with everyone we encounter. Being vulnerable is scary. It is much easier to hide behind our various masks.

I like the words, daring greatly. They come from Theodore Roosevelt:

“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.”

The words give me hope for I am often marred by sweat and I fall short, but I do strive and I hope it is a valiant striving. You can decide not to walk a bit because ‘what’s the point if I can’t run for an hour?’, or you can leave your words in the dark, never daring to share them because ‘what if no one likes them?’ 

OR, you can DARE GREATLY!