Be Fearless in What You Attempt

Most of the stories I post here come from writers in the arts world, who create fiction, memoir, and poetry. But today I have something from the world of commerce and IT: a commencement speech given by Tim O'Reilly, founder of the computer book publisher O'Reilly Media (thanks to Tina at Read Pen for the link):

We work in a profession that can be mysterious to the layman, with a private language that sets us apart like one of the secret societies depicted in The Da Vinci Code! I still remember my first exposure to the computer industry as a humanities graduate. I was an experienced writer, but knew nothing about technology. I'd agreed to help a friend of mine, a programmer, to land a contract job writing a manual. We interviewed two engineers about their project while I took increasingly desperate notes. It was as if they were speaking a foreign language! As we walked away, I turned to my friend and asked "Were they just pulling my leg?" It was hard to believe that this jargon-filled dialog was actually meaningful. It was an inauspicious start to my career.

There are three lessons that I took away from that moment. The first was to be fearless in what you attempt. The job I eventually mastered was an enormous stretch for me. The second lesson was that a difficulty is often an opportunity in disguise. I built my company by bridging the information gap that I first encountered that day. The third lesson was the importance of serendipity in your life choices. I never imagined that I'd build a career as a technical writer, publisher, and entrepreneur. My training was in Greek and Latin Classics! Agreeing to help out my friend proved to be a turning point in my life.

I had a similar experience when I started looking for my first job out of university. Ottawa has two major job markets: government and high tech. I wanted work related to writing and editing, and after fruitless salvos to the few book and magazine publishers in town, I started applying for technical writing jobs. A friend recommended me at his software company, and despite the fact that I had no technical experience except for my minor in Chemistry, I was hired as a junior writer.

Learning the ropes of writing technical documentation was a stretch, but I'm so glad I had the opportunity. Tech writing has provided the financial support for my fiction writing career--kind of like my wealthy patron. And now I find myself stretching again, into the world of branding, copywriting, and promotion. Since I started freelancing and have a better balance of time for fiction, I'm enjoying my commercial writing even more.

Buried at the bottom of O'Reilly's speech is this little nugget, which seems like it was custom-written for me today:

Don't be afraid to fail. There's a wonderful poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that talks about the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with an angel, being defeated, but coming away stronger from the fight. It ends with an exhortation that goes something like this: "What we fight with is so small, and when we win, it makes us small. What we want is to be defeated, decisively, by successively greater things."

[Does anyone know this Rilke poem? I would love to find it.]