Re-watched JK Rowling's Harvard speech twice today.
Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged...And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.Steve Jobs also said this in his Stanford speech. He felt the same when he was chased out of Apple. Responsibilities and other burdens tend to pile on us as we age. Is it true that we can only find our passion when we are at rock bottom? I guess it just helps us to see better. My life is so cluttered now. I have so much to do but yet when I have a slice of time, I don't know where to start. Death or failure helps us to prioritise. That is the time when small things don't really matter.
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.Reminds me of friends who plan out their travels to the last detail. Reminds me of friends who stick with screwed-up working conditions because they were afraid to make the next move. Reminds me of friends who are afraid to do sales or to make a public presentation, but yet want to be rich. The joke is I stayed in a job for 10 years and it is not even a job that I like.
Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.Something which I stopped doing and wished that I could do more of.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.I have to constantly remind myself.
