The Path to Greatness?

I frequently find myself envying the ability of others to discipline themselves enough to focus on become great at something. And then I ask myself, "What do I want to be great at? What can I be great at?" I am only answered by distraction; a reminder that the question is moot.

I love to brag about my friends and have them meet each other because I am so proud of them. I think having such impressive friends both inspires me and leads me to exaggerate my own mediocrity (leading to thoughts such as those above). Recently I was pleasantly reminded that sometimes I am better than mediocre - even one of the best - when performing new and unfamiliar tasks where no one is at an advantage. Learning quickly, adaptability - that is what I can be great at and where I should choose to (somehow) focus.

It seems both like a ridiculous thing to call a skill, and like a completely valuable meta-skill, all at once. I think as more of a meta-skill, it can only be valuable for developing real (albeit perhaps as of yet undetermined and undefined) skills. It doesn't stand on its own. When the time comes, perhaps I will find myself in a situation unfamiliar to the world, surrounded in a dark cloud of uncertainty and ambiguity, where I can succeed where other great people would have failed.

Of course, this encourages me to continue my scattered way of life, always trying to learn new things but never sticking things out. But I've been increasingly feeling the lack of structure in my life over the past couple of years. Maybe my new challenge should be learning things of a different nature: discipline, tact, perception, and relationship building rather than cooking a new dish, a programming language, or how to use wheelies. I guess what I'm really after is not just learning how to learn, but also building up strength, stability, and character so that I can use what I learn in a meaningful way.

In any case, I am newly inspired. I've got all sorts of new goals floating around in my head... maybe I'll write about them some time when they're better formulated. I start a new (awesome) job in a week and a half... I guess I'll see where that takes me as well.

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Fail? Web 2.0 Adventures update

I've been spending a lot of time enjoying the fail blog lately, and it has reminded me that I am failing to do this whole blogging thing. So I decided not only to write the above blog, but also to revisit my first post about my web 2.0 adventures and reflect on how it has been going. This is really for my own good more than anything, not something I expect other people to find interesting ;-).

Blogger - I have sucked at this thus far, but have been inspired to write more by a new person in my life, and so I will.

Twitter - People have been adding my old twitter (sallymaki) which I've abandoned because I've decided sallymaki is a terrible screen name. It's weird to me that people are finding it at all... some whom I'm barely acquaintances with. I've been keeping up on this decently, and found an awesome friend from high school to follow.

Picasa - eh? fail.

Flickr - coming soon (still)

YouTube - I definitely participate more on here than I used to, having favorited a couple of videos and made a couple of comments. Yay.

delicious - Using this a TON more. Woot!

Pandora - I think the web 2.0 features on here aren't particularly useful, and so while I used them for a while, I've decided it's not worth it.

Friendfeed - I LOVE friendfeed. Thanks Adam. I especially like to use this to get specialized news.

Other sites:

Facebook - participation hasn't changed (barely existent). I have plans on someday uploading a few more photos.

Couchsurfing - *sigh*, oh how I miss you

LinkedIn - nothing special to say.