"This book should be required reading for software engineers. Designing Data-Intensive Applications is a rare resource that connects theory and practice to help developers make smart decisions as they design and implement data infrastructure and systems."

When we fall short, when we are revealed as the fundamentally flawed, vulnerable, beatable, screwed-up people we are? It can be hard to get going again. If we're too hard on ourselves, we'll knock ourselves out… out of the fight entirely. We are all going to screw up. We're going to relapse-on the diet, on the bad habit, whatever. We're going to blow it in public. We are going to lose. Nobody stays undefeated for long in this life. And then what? Can we gather ourselves back up? Can we regroup and try again?

The graveyard of lost potential, we might say, is filled with people who just needed to do something else first. The time to do it is now. The time to get started is now. The thing to start with is the hard part, the part you want to do the least. Not begrudgingly, but promptly and enthusiastically, with a body that's been trained for hard work and a mind that's sharp and focused.