December is a time when many people gather with their families, whether they celebrate a major holiday in that month or not.

Children are off school, work has slowed down, the nights are long and dark and cold. It’s a good time to be warmed in each other’s love and attention.

Sometimes, however, we end up dreading this togetherness, because we are afraid of what our loved ones will say about our choices – of a partner, of a career, of a place to live. When are you going to have a baby? Are you pregnant again? When are you going to get a real job?

Everyone has an opinion. It’s enough to make many people want to hide under the covers, and not come out until the holiday season is over.

This is where I turn, once again, to Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena speech. I first encountered it in Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly. It was delivered in 1910, but still resonates today, with a few gender updates to bring it up to 2019.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the [person] who points out how the strong [person] stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the [person] 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 [she] fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that [their] place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

If your critics are not in your arena, striving along with you, covered in dust and sweat and blood, then you can ignore their opinions. Ask yourself whether they have earned the right to criticise your life. How much attention does the Grey Cup champion give to the armchair quarterbacks?

I know it is not easy, when you know that the critics love you and are concerned about you, but you are still under no obligation to take on their criticism. That is even more true when the critics are just jealous or feel threatened by your choices. Trolls on the Internet really don’t deserve the time of day.

Never forget – the only person responsible for your life is YOU.