I've been failing for about the same length of time. Had some weird ups, some weird downs, learned a lot, etc. I should probably write a book, but I really can'

I've been failing for about the same length of time. Had some weird ups, some weird downs, learned a lot, etc. I should probably write a book, but I really can't be arsed to do it right now. The important thing, to my way of thinking, is that I'm still here, still failing. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't really "failed" per-se until I quit (or die). As long as I'm still moving forward, still learning, and still chasing my dreams, I'm "in the game". I'll go back to one of my all-time favorite pg essays: If you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it's actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup. It certainly describes what happened in Viaweb. We avoided dying till we got rich.[1] And truth be told, I don't know how much I even care about the "getting rich" part anymore. I mean, sure, all things being equal, I'd rather be rich than not. But at this point, I'm just happy to be still growing, still learning, still exploring. Just being in the game is its own reward in many ways. [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html