Knowing that the paths of most creators are not linear, nor are they simple, can be enormously reassuring on those days when all seems lost and the horizon seems impossibly far away. You’re not special. You’re not a unicorn. Neither blessed nor cursed.

I believe that your best chance of making something great is by making many possibly great things.

Maybe write a book on teaching.

“Throwing my present to the future” is based upon the assumption that many of the problems we face today are temporary, fleeting, and ultimately forgettable, but in the moment, they can feel awful, momentous, and painful. In these cases, I try to avoid those negative feelings by acknowledging that the problem will be irrelevant in a day or a week

Dig deep. Ask yourself hard questions. Give yourself the time required to find those answers, as uncomfortable or painful or heartbreaking as they may be. They can be the fuel that you will need on the days when your desire is low but your time is still ticking.

So much of what we are asked to do or what we ask of ourselves can be eliminated.

One more rotten person I’d like you to avoid at all costs: the “Yeah, but” monster. These people are the worst.

Judy Blume is correct. You can accomplish great things in two hours. But don’t discount the ten-minute increments, either. You may not be able to accomplish anything especially great, but pile up enough productive ten-minute bits of time in a day and you can get a hell of a lot done.

“A jack-of-all-trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”