I am enjoying a wonderful birthday today. And why wouldn’t I? I was feted by my family over the weekend, and both my husband and I have booked ourselves off for the day. First order of business? Latte…then moksha yoga. Deliciously hot. Our instructor kicked off final savasana today with a famous quote from Theodore Roosevelt. It spoke to me (and not just because I was bathed in sweat) and I wanted to share it with you.

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 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 and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

For my birthday, I ask that you be kind to yourself too…and know that it’s okay to come up short time and time again.

Off to feast on oysters for lunch now. Yup, it’s a good day to be me.