Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Why It's Okay To Suck

Maggie Stiefvater, best-selling author, artist, musician and wise woman, offers up some advice on why it's okay to suck at something. She is talking about learning to play the bagpipes, and how it applies to writing or drawing or knitting or taking photographs or anything else in life you choose to try.

Becoming good at something is not just about diligent practice, although that is part of it, but also about being terrible, I mean really sucking at something, but not letting that part define you or convince you to give up.

Learn to persevere. Keep at it. Then you won't suck anymore.

I believe it was Yoda or maybe Churchill who said, "Life's real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up."

And it was Churchill, or maybe Yoda, who also said, "Do, or do not. There is no try."

It was definitely Churchill who said, "Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."

And Groucho Marx said, "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

So hop to it. Stay with it. Succeed and then sing about it from the rooftops. Or pick up your bagpipes. Whatever floats your boat.

And in other news, I am not heading downtown to pick up my new car today. Yesterday, it was so hot I was in shorts to walk the Budster and we both came home panting from the heat. Today? This is what I woke up to. A record breaker. Because Mother Fricking Nature likes nothing better than to rain on someone's parade. Unless it's snowing on someone's parade.




(Psst. Don't forget to have a look at the landscape photos in the post before this one and let me know which ones ring your bell.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

UGH; I do not like snow in April, especially so close to May! It's been chilly in NW Pennsylvania too. Snow flurries are in this evening's forecast, but nothing like the snow that you have.

Diane T. said...

My friend Amy wrote "The OK Book," which is all about it being okay to be just OK at stuff. It's aimed and kids, but I think it applies to all of us.

Hers is Just another way to say why it's okay to suck! She's written lots of books, but I particularly like this one :-)

http://www.amazon.com/OK-Book-Amy-Krouse-Rosenthal/dp/0061152552/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_5

Debby said...

Sometimes I suck. It's good to know that it's okay, because really, I show no signs of ceasing to sometimes suck.

*sigh* It was spitting snow this morning. That sucks too. And furthermore, I don't think it's okay.

Lottery Girl said...

Looks like you are having the same weather we're having: glorious sun, and then snow, and then sun, etc. At least the snow melts quickly. I never count on the snow being completely over here until June, and even last year, we had a cold/snowy day on June 4.

Small price to pay for living in paradise.

A Novel Woman said...

LG, snow this time of year is the pits. It smothered all the tulips. There is no paradise, only floral carnage.

Geez, Mother Nature can be a real mofo sometimes.

I just hope our dock isn't at the bottom of the lake.

Lottery Girl said...

Murdered tulips are rather... awful. We don't plant lovely flowers here in the Rockies because the Elk think flower beds are really a salad bar and then they behead the tulips and the daffodils. There's no arguing with one of these dudes or chicks. The elk are everywhere right now.