I've been a bit too jealous lately. Sometimes I do get sucked into the trap of thinking that employment == usefulness and that my inability to immediately cite a single full-time employer in response to "what do you do?" translates into "I'm worthless!" And then that makes me upset that other people are doing cool things, if I feel useless now, how dare they demonstrate their greater utility?" (Yeah, it's dumb. Fortunately, it usually doesn't take me very long to catch this, and logic applied at the right pressure points takes care of it with great rapidity.)

I'd probably do well to remember this.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -- Mark Twain

Yep. I found a page of quotes tonight, and liked a bunch. I mean, juxtaposition of Churchill and Simpson? Yay!

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. -- Sir Winston Churchill

Trying is the first step torwards failure. -- Homer Simpson

Also,

If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. -- Mario Andretti

Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen. -- Edward V. Berard

I like work, it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. -- Jerome K. Jerome

Right then. Almost bedtime.