Can be the best or the worst advice ever, depending on the circumstance, but this TED/talk resonated with me. I think, that approaching 60, I am the most authentic version of myself that’s ever gotten out of bed in the morning.

The most inspiring phrase to me from this: “with a spectacular disregard for where my abilities end.”

I have no clue. I’ve also reached the age where I have no choice. I’m playing catch-up and it is, to a very real degree, a game of survival. Things have always gone better for me under pressure, but at least it’s happening.

So people always say, “you can do anything you put your mind to.” That’s just a fucking lie and I think that while it doesn’t set people up for failure, it sets them up to be crushed by failure. It sets them up for disappointment, and that brings me back to a quote that resonated deeply from earlier this year. It’s not the disappointment that gets you; it’s the hope.

You can try anything you put your mind to. Failure doesn’t really matter.

Anyway.

Be yourself. Because everybody else is already taken.

And another line that killed me: “The fact is, I’ve never been the center of attention. You’re the center of mine.”

Holy moly.

But interesting as this talk is, this is what I’ve been coming through these last several years. There has been this pain, not of childbirth, but the pain of being born, which while inextricably connected, is not the same.