Editing note: This was written on 12/7/11. 

I wasn't going to blog tonight.  I have just come home from a really [really] nice time with a handsome, well spoken, intelligent, kind man, and I was simply going to relax, surf and go to bed.  Then I went to my favorite webpage: TED.  As I  scanned the pages, I keep passing up this one topic.  It is about doing something for 30 days.  It doesn't catch my interest.  As I skip over it for the third time, my eyes happen to fall on the first have of the title:   Matt Cutts: Try Something For 30 Days!!!!  I know Matt Cutts.  I joke with him.  I have been in his house.  I have a relationship with his wife.  OMG I know a TED speaker.  How fucking cool is that I ask you???

Of course I listened to his talk.  It put me in the mind of what I did my first year I moved to SF.  I called it "My Year of Failure".  The idea was to try to fail at as many things as possible.  Well, not really try to fail at them, but, more like try anything that came to mind with failing at the adventure being a viable outcome. When I failed I could add related memorabilia to my "Failure Wall".  

1996-1997 was a great year.

I entered a sandcastle building contest which lead me to Susanna who taught me how to sculpt with clay that lead me to want to sketch that lead me to a month in Rome in 2010.

I walked in my first Bay to Breakers 7 K run, which was the start of a 5 year tradition.

I entered a bench that a friend and I painted into the Napa County Fair.   Not only did we win a blue ribbon, but we won Best Of Show.

I asked men out with our concern for getting turned down. That gave me the confidence I needed when I walked into a grocery store several years ago looking for guy who had promised me a phone call but had not yet dialed the phone.  That lead to an eight year relationship.

I applied for jobs for which I did not have a reasonable chance of being offered the opportunity.  That lead to a comfort with the job interview process and allowed me to freely apply for a job totally out of my comfort zone. I still have that job today.

It was empowering to have the freedom to fail. It not only allowed me to try activities for which I had been hesitant to try before, it allowed me to do things for which I would have never even considered before.