I wear the same gold necklace around my neck every day. It says IN THE ARENA in thin, stamped letters, and I never take it off. It was a gift from Jordan a couple of years ago, and it was a thoughtful one, but the truth is, I asked for it. I needed it. I'd seen Theodore Roosevelt's words in Brene Brown's book and floating around the Internet, and I felt compelled to have them close. I needed them available to touch.
"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."
Later my dad told me that for years he'd kept these same words in his office at work, though I'd never known it. Now the necklace serves as my own talisman, a source of comfort when I'm feeling particularly worn down.
For the past couple of months, I've admittedly grown increasingly tired of the "arena," however you define that term. Shortly after Christmas, I tearfully told Jordan I felt too battered and bruised to be in the middle anymore. It's too much pressure, too many eyes. Owning a business and existing on the Internet have exposed me in ways I've felt ill-prepared for. Perhaps it's my self-catastrophizing nature (hello to my enneagram wing 6), but over the past year I've found myself living in fear of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, of messing up my reputation or the reputation of the business I own.
Every day now, both in my small town and online, I interact with the public, with customers and acquaintances and people I've never met or who I barely know. It's an odd position for an introverted person to find herself in, and yet, I'm grateful for it, even -- to some extent -- accustomed to it. In 2008, I began blogging regularly because it felt like something a journalism major should try. I never became famous, never sold ads or made money, but I loved that blog as a creative outlet, loved writing out my thoughts on faith and work and marriage and books and life, and I loved it enough to keep doing it, in some form or fashion, ever since.
In fact, like so many millennials I know, I went on to meet some of my dearest and best friends and mentors and spiritual guideposts through the Internet. I have encountered opportunities and vacation ideas and wardrobe solutions and DIY tips and spiritual soulmates in blogs and books and Instagram feeds I would never have discovered otherwise. In other words, the Internet has, for me, been almost entirely gift.
And yet I know: There is also cancel culture and vulnerability hangover and the ever-changing algorithm. There are influencers and trolls and strangers who maybe shouldn't know all the things you've told them. There is excessive scrolling and a struggle with contentment and comparison and the increasing effort to know when to post what and why. There are tweets and bots, and maybe hacking is a real threat, too, who knows, and it's all just a little too much.
So where is the line? What is the solution? Is the Internet even the problem?
Don't arenas exist everywhere, in all shapes and sizes? Even if I took the Internet off the table, don't I have a storefront and a community and a staff? Won't there always be people with opinions and criticisms and feedback?
Is the arena really the problem, or -- as I'm starting to suspect -- is the problem with me?
This week, when I met with my business coach, I expressed my exhaustion, how I've grown The Bookshelf over the last seven years, how for the most part it's been so unbelievably good, but for some reason my brain still suffers from anxiety and fear, cycling through thoughts about what people might think and how they might choose to express it. (There is, after all, no boss to take the flak, no co-owner to share the burden, no one else really leading the way. The buck stops with me.)
She said something that helped re-frame things for me in a way I had never considered.
She told me to stop thinking of social media and podcasting as marketing, to think of it, instead, as creative pursuit. As art. Art, after all, is subjective; there are critics and consumers and everything in between, but the art remains regardless of the criticisms held or spoken.
In all of it -- the store ownership, the social media posts, the podcast episodes -- I'd forgotten I was creating something.
And I can't keep creating things if I'm living in a state of fear and anxiety. Can you really create beautiful, thoughtful art if you're obsessed with the critic and the consumer?
No one had ever told me to think about my business as art before. After all, in retail, the customer is always right. As a person, I know everyone who interacts with me won't walk away liking me or understanding me or appreciating me. But as the owner of a retail store, the goal is for every customer to walk away happy, pleased, coming back for more. It's complicated, then, isn't it?
I'm wondering, though, if viewing my job as creation, reminding myself there will always be critics and feedback and pressure -- some of it fair, some unfair -- might help me stay in the arena longer, might strengthen my resolve and tune out the sea of voices I've tried so hard to navigate with grace.
This shift in thinking, I know, won't be instant, but over the past several days I've felt a freedom that wasn't there before. There's burden lifted, a weight gone.
It reminds me, a little, of this rather small verse in the Old Testament. Nehemiah the prophet is in the process of rebuilding a wall, and there are distractions and voices coming from each and every angle, and he finally says, quite simply and strongly: "I am doing a great work and cannot come down."
He was busy creating something. He had work to do. He chose and listened to the voices that mattered, and then he kept doing the work.
I love that.
I'm going to stay in the arena. I hope you will, too.
