Let's Make Some Mistakes Today

Back when I worked at Twitter, shortly after we moved into our old office on Folsom Street late in 2009, someone hung this Mike Monteiro print up near the exec's offices:

Yes, this was intentionally hung upside down.

It was playful and fun, a symbol of the humble, startup-y, "can do" nature of the company's culture circa 2010. Back then, I didn't give it much thought.

Two years later, Twitter HQ was bursting at the seams, and we moved into bigger and better digs near the Civic Center. Most things made the trip over -- except this print (infamously).

I don't presume to know if Dick's (Twitter's CEO) edict -- that that particular piece of artwork not make the journey over to the new office -- is true, or, if his rationale that Twitter was no longer the type of company that artwork represents, is true either. It doesn't really matter. That quote stuck with me, and I wouldn't have given it a second thought if that print ended up in the new office.

It's true, you can take a more inherently optimistic view that statement may imply: there's always time as long we do our best.

The way I interpret it, however, is that you can't make mistakes if you don't try, much less make better ones. I've spent parts of the last year being overly cautious in what I choose to do next, wondering if the things I do are better than the last -- enough so that it occasionally paralyzes me in my steps. I'm done with that.

Let's make some mistakes today.

This post originally appeared on Medium.