NEWSPOT DAILY TONIC: The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything. By Bishop Duke Akamisoko

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Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. Stay hungry. Stay motivated .There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. All progress takes place outside the comfort zone. I still struggle with the same problems as ten years ago. I succeed in small matters but the real goal remains unattainable, even though it sometimes seems palpably close. It is hard, yet rewarding: hard because the goal is beyond my abilities, but rewarding because it makes one oblivious to the distractions of everyday life. Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. I have been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I have never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements. Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you. Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you? Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. When you are offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t waste time asking what seat it is, simply get on! Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference. I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now. Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it. All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place. Art is my life and my life is art. Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist. The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.
There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. The creative adult is the child who survived. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Bp. Duke