I’ve watched Brené Brown’s Netflix special, The Call to Courage, twice so far since it aired two weeks ago. I consider Brown one of my core teachers and the special synthetizes all her main ideas about vulnerability, connection, leadership, and what it means to be brave and show up in your life.
Every talk she gives and each book she writes, she includes this quote by Teddy Roosevelt:
“It’s 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 at best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
If you live your life in the arena, you’re going to get your ass kicked, Brown repeats. It is not a matter of risking failure … you will fail.
I will fail. I want to be brave with my life, so I will fail. I feel like I need to repeat this again and again until it becomes less paralyzing.
I keep thinking of another line from Brown’s talk:
“Vulnerability is hard and it’s scary and it feels dangerous. But it’s not as hard, or scary or dangerous as getting to the end of our lives and having to ask ourselves: What if I would’ve shown up?”
What if I would’ve shown up?
In the spirit of my year of Create, I decided to apply for a writer’s retreat back in January (Lambda Literary Emerging Writer’s Retreat). I found out that I got waitlisted this week. Now, part of me is disappointed. Okay, that’s a cheap word for it. Part of me is crushed. I would have liked to go; I would have liked to have my writing validated; I would have liked to have my ambition validated.
But I have enough clarity in my life right now to recognize the pursuit of this opportunity for what it was: a reengagement with my writing and creativity. Since deciding to apply to this retreat, I’ve worked on my writing seriously for the first time since college. I’ve loved it. I’m reawakening a self I thought had gone forever.
I also know that validation of my creativity and passion doesn’t come from outside sources, it first needs to come from myself.
And for a competitive writer’s retreat, waitlisted is worth being proud of in my book.
What was the alternative? Not putting myself out there? Being so certain I wouldn’t get in that I wouldn’t even try (my thinking up until mid-January)?
Being brave with your life means getting rejected. It means making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, and not being good enough, not yet. But it also means unlocking your limits. The world is big – why play small with your life?
With Love,
Natalie