Neil Gaiman: life sage

As usual, Little Willow found the perfect quote to match my current dilemma. What am I going to do next in my life? Here is wise advice about careers and life from Neil Gaiman, pulled out of the Prince of Stories, a biography about the writer by Golden, Bisette, and Wagner.

This is what Neil told his daughter: "I tried to explain to Holly, recently, because Holly is off in London right now. She wants to be in film, film production, and she gets offered jobs, and sometimes, she genuinely doesn’t know which job she should pursue. The only thing I can tell her is that I was in her position, wanting to write comics, and wanting to write fiction, now making a living as a freelance journalist. I say to her, look, I used to think it was a mountain, a thing I wanted to do, a thing I wanted to be, and as long as I was walking toward that mountain, it was okay. I told her she needs to figure out what her mountain is, and you can sort of judge these things by – does it take you away from the mountain?"

I've been pondering this exact question these last few weeks: what is my mountain? And is my next step going to take me away from my mountain or closer to my mountain?

The beginning of a New Year, I think, is perfect timing for all of us to ponder that... Are we growing? Developing? Reaching our potential? What is that potential? What do we want from life today? Tomorrow? Twenty years from now? And are we making progress to get there: to our beautiful, glorious mountain?