To Enter the Arena

What if it was brought to your attention that you may have a belief deep down that says:

"Do not step fully into the arena until you can guarantee that the result will confirm who you believe you are."

What would you do? How would you take it? What would you think?

Being on the Outside

It was brought to my attention that this may be me. Unfortunately, for me, a few weeks ago I read President Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" quote and instantly felt like the "do not step fully into the arena" quote was a personal jab. For those of you who have never heard of the quote, it is as follows:

"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." - President Theodore Roosevelt

When I first read this, I was at work, and my friend and I were talking about him shooting his shot with a woman and being rejected. He brought up how he used to go out with friends to bars and just walk up to women and say hi and try to be friendly and strike up conversations with women he thought were interesting, and how he would get rejected over and over, and his friends would just laugh at him, but they would never do anything themselves. His friends would just go to bars and parties and stand in the corner and not talk to anyone. I instantly thought of the "Man in the Arena" quote because I thought of all the people who laugh at other people as they are on the sidelines while the person being laughed at is actually doing something. I thought I was the man in the arena. However, if the observation is made that potentially I am not the man in the arena, but instead one of the people on the outside waiting for something to happen, then perhaps I am not. If I am truly not what I believed myself to be, how can that not be a gut punch? How can I not question whether I have been delusional not only in who I am, but also in my ability, and question whether I have been honest with myself or lying?

What the Arena and Outside the Arena Are

What is the arena anyway?

What is the arena not?

In my opinion, the arena is where the action is happening, where the deed is done, where the gladiators slay the beast, and the athletes compete. Basically, the arena is the doing and the actual action taken to achieve. What the arena is not is all that is outside the arena. Outside of the arena is all things that are not doing the task or the thing we commit to do. Outside of the arena can be researching, reading, doing other things that are not the thing, preparation, and everything else that goes with getting ready to do something. Outside the arena can also be procrastinating, delaying, distractions, perfectionism, and other things. If you are like me, perhaps outside of the arena is the underlying need for a guarantee that everything will work out as you wish, that you know you will never get, but you feel you need to even enter the building.

Now, don't get me wrong, outside of the arena is not a bad thing. We all have to prepare and plan and make sure we are not making ill-informed decisions. However, at some point, we have to go in, right? We can't stay outside forever, or can we? I think for many people, including myself, we fail to realize how much of our life we are actually spending on the outside, distracted by so many things for our individual reasons. My reasons, to name a few, have probably been:

• The outcome feels like a verdict on who I am.

• If I choose the wrong thing and neglect the life I was actually supposed to build, it feels like a big mistake.

• I am safest when I know what I am doing, can anticipate what might go wrong, and do not have to depend too heavily on someone else.

• Overthinking - Thinking gives me mastery before action can give me feedback.

• "Almost there" is familiar, meaningful, and less binding than arrival.

Overall, I may have been afraid that full participation will produce evidence that is smaller, messier, slower, or less impressive than my inner sense of who I am and what my life could become. Basically, I may not be as cool or hot shit as I thought myself to be. How then do you enter the arena and limit being outside to only the time in which you truly need to be?

How to Enter the Arena

If you are on the outside of the arena, how do you eventually enter? If we base it purely on the message that started this all, then you enter with no guarantee that the outcome will confirm who you believe yourself to be. Perhaps that would require a release of who we believe ourselves to be and a trust that in doing, we reveal to ourselves who we are, and that, in fact, we do not truly know who we are, but rather follow values that guide us to who we are, and the past serves more as benchmarks of who we have been.

Other ways to enter the arena may be:

• Having a clear destination or task that you desire to do.

• Having a clear idea of what is actually doing versus what is distracting.

• Having enough information to attempt the task.

• Attempting.

Maybe the above proves better as steps to enter the arena versus ways to enter. But what happens after you enter the arena and are on the pitch? How do you stay in the arena? Is staying permanent, or is it a give and take?