I know I don’t know what I want

I’m trying to be more open to the idea that I don’t know what I want. It’s easy to get swept up and inherit other people’s values wholesale; pause for a moment to reflect on what you really want, or how to find that out.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most. It is extraordinary to discover that comparatively few people reach this level of maturity. They seem never to have paused to consider what has value for them. They spend great effort and sometimes make great sacrifices for values that, fundamentally, meet no real needs of their own. Perhaps they have imbibed the values of their particular profession or job, of their community or their neighbors, of their parents or family. Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Fail more.

I saw Neil Gaiman speak recently. He was as eloquent on stage as you’d expect, and an answer to one particular audience question reminded of a New Year Wish of his:

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.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Conversely, if you aren’t failing, you are seriously underestimating the extent of your skills and how far you could be stretching yourself.