Quote of the Week...from Neil Gaiman

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.  Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.  You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.                                        ---Neil Gaiman

I've read and enjoyed most of English writer Neil Gaiman's novels...they're usually a combination of fantasy and horror, often with some good old satire thrown in.  Gaiman started out writing comic books and graphic novels...I'm glad this gifted writer decided to try his hand at the more conventional novel format.  The above quote of his tells me that Gaiman himself realized that if you're ever going to grow or get anything substantial or meaningful accomplished in your life, then you have to plunge into what you're doing with the foresight that you will screw up bigtime on a lot of things and that it's important to learn from those failures as you experience them in order to achieve excellence.  Many years ago I took a Russian language class in which the professor told the class that they could say anything in Russian to him they liked...but they had to say it correctly.  I instantly thought that was a lot of BS, and I noticed the following year while around some Vietnamese refugees I worked with that the ones who threw off their pride and uninhibitedly spoke English knowing that much of what they said would be incorrect...even laughable...were the ones who achieved fluency the fastest.  So I say the New Year's always a cool time to consider new ventures...but just remember that if you're a novice at something it's important to be humble around others and eager to learn from your mistakes.  As a matter of fact, unless you're taking up something like sky or cave diving that you'd better get perfect from the start (or else), you should expect those shortfalls in your early efforts, else you're not really trying hard enough...