Being a programmer is the same way. The only way to be a good programmer is to write code. When you realize you haven't been writing much code lately, and it seems like all you do is brag about code you wrote in the past, and people start looking at you funny while you're shooting your mouth off, realize it's because they know. They might not even know they know, but they know. So, yes, doing what you love brings success, and by all means, throw yourself a nice big party, buy yourself a nice car, soak up the adulation of an adoring crowd. Then shut the fuck up and get back to work. -- Sincerity Theory

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. -- Mark Twain

Do not accept anything because it comes from the mouth of a respected person. -- Buddha

The good thing about reinventing the wheel is that you get a round one. -- Douglas Crockford (Author of JSON and JsLint)

I think the root of your mistake is saying that macros don't scale to larger groups. The real truth is that macros don't scale to stupider groups. -- Paul Graham, on the Lightweight Languages mailing list.

And if you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all. -- Joel Spolsky

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it. ~Jane Smiley

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. –Farrah Gray

Success is...knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others. ~ John C. Maxwell