From Teddy R.

It is not the critic who counts:  not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the does 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 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.

Thought-Men

It's dusk.  

The heavens are painted blazing red mixed with sun-dance orange and purple.  Giant curled whisps of hued clouds slash the summer evening sky.  The pale glow of an eastern moon is now risen and under the shade of that mighty oak tree that coils in the over-grown fields of my mind, I sit in somber silence watching the daily parade of Thought-Men amble past me.   Some carry hand-painted signs with dark green letters that read "YOUR DREAMS," others possess tiny scraps of paper that, if I squint very very hard read "self confidence," and yet others carry nothing at all : they merely trudge past under the weight of some invisible force...not knowing when to stop, or veer; they merely follow single file until the horizon claims them one by one.  

A gentle rolling breeze now pushes against the side of my face causing my eyelids to grow heavy.  I realize that I've been watching these poor creatures for close to a decade, and every day they seem to grow more and more weary, racked by burden.  Their eyes, bereft of hope...looking to me and finding none.   

In days past...when I first arrived, they would shout, holler and cartwheel past me trying desperately to get my attention.  Their signs were bigger and bolder.  I didn't have to squint to read anything a'tall; in fact, it took two of them to carry most.  

Now....as the day draws to a close, the last one slowly shuffles past me, head hung, his small dirt- stained sign barely clinging to one hand at his side.  I realize now that I'm the cause of their suffering.  My own proclivities of complacency have caused me to dig my roots in right where I was sitting; next to that sad tangled oak.   

It's time to make a change.   I called to him hesitantly-

"Excuse me...you with the "Renewed Passion" sign...come here, lend me a hand.....I'm coming with you!"