Sunday, June 15, 2008

The wisdom of J K Rowling

...because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
J K Rowling, Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

I noticed people were blogging about this so I went to see ...



Part 2 is here, with Part 3 is here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My niece is a student at Harvard and heard this address.

Di Mackey said...

It's inspiring, isn't it :)