Embrace the Haters

Some weeks ago I once again participated in a YouTube video with my daughter for her YouTube channel, “Angela Rose”. I take part in some of her videos simply because I enjoy the time we spend together, but also because maybe someone can benefit from some of the things we discuss.

It is always amusing to read the comments a few weeks later. Most of them are positive, but there are always the “haters”, people whose job is to find an issue with something you did, something you said, how you said it, or how you looked while saying it. But my daughter knows, as well as I do, that it comes with the territory. Anyone who does something outside of the norm will encounter the professional critic.

This made me think about how many people actually quit or are discouraged from doing something positive, worthwhile or daring because they are afraid of the criticism and ridicule that will inevitably follow. However, I was also reminded of Theodore Roosevelt when he talked about the “Man in the Arena”. A reflection on those who dare to “get in the fight”, and those whose apparent job is to criticize them when they happen to stumble.

I think that this reflection is more important than ever, especially with today’s social media jungle. So much so that I added a framed copy of that speech to both of our Karate schools for our students to read and understand that they will be surely criticized and mocked if they try, and worse, if they fail at something. But it is in participating, in the trying, and even in the failing, that one ultimately succeeds. If you are not criticized, you aren’t doing enough, so embrace the haters, because their arrival signifies that you are moving forward. Keep going.

"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." - Theodore Roosevelt