again with my propensity to quote dead US presidents

I tend to inadvertently find awe and inspiration in the words of US presidents who have long since died.

Of course, I know it's not their words, but the words of someone else paid to write them.

But it doesn't really matter who wrote the words, does it? It's what you make of it, where you grasp the inspiration from.

So from the filed marked "Wise words from dead US Presidents('s speech writers)", here's the latest nugget of inspiration courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt. Onya Teddy!

"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 and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, 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 he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

I'm about to go on a limb - do something a little risky, a little unknown - and do something I really want to do, something I'm passionate about. Something that gets me back to the very basics of what I've wanted to do in my career - tell stories. Tell stories my way.

But there's fear. The good kind. The kind where it's more nervous energy than crippling anxiety. To quote William Shatner (he hasn't played a US president, has he? He's Canadian, so it almost seems wrong) in one of his spoken words:

"What are you afraid of? Failure? So am I."

Me too, William Shatner, me too.

But I'd rather give my grand plan a crack, than go through life thinking, "I had a good idea way back when."