Steve Pavlina talks about testing things to failure. He speaks of not being afraid to try something new - to test the boundaries of a new idea. He advises:
When you do test, however, don’t be timid about it. Use testing to seek out the limits of your abilities. Let yourself run into physical walls and say “ouch� as needed, but don’t be stopped by imaginary ones. When you test, keep testing to the point of failure. You never know where your limits are until you run into them.
I like it.
Say what you like about Carlos Casteneda - personally, I don’t care if he actually ever met the old Yacqui wise man in the Mexican desert or not - it is his teachings that touched me. One I remember vividly is The Path With A Heart - I first read it in my early teens, and I still have the words on a poster in storage. It goes something like this: in his life, a man may follow many paths. Some are long, some short. The only path worth following is the path with a heart. If a man follows a path that is not of the heart, it will be hard, and if he keeps on that path, it will kill him. In other words, if you do something that is inconsistent with your basic nature then it will kill you.
It goes on to say that there is only one way to find out if this particular path is for you - to walk it to the end. Give it all you have, to the best of your ability, and if it is not for you, then you’ll find out sooner.
You might think that this sounds like a castle in the clouds - but think about it… how many of us retire in the trade we started in? I’m in my early forties, but already I’ve been a sales assistant/storeman, payroll clerk, communications analyst, systems administrator, contract technical writer and coder, business development manager, gas meter reader, internet marketing consultant, and consultant information architect. Who knows where I’ll be in five years time?