Years ago, while in a traveling sales job that I hated, I stopped at a gas station and used the restroom. Someone, annoyed by the wet floors, had scrawled above the urinal, “We aim to please. You aim too, please.”

It was a classic bit of latrinalia that I’d seen a dozen times before. Written beneath that in a different hand was another bit of graffiti: “We rarely hit where we do not aim.”

Initially I thought it was simply a variation on a theme, but as I continued my journey the words stuck with me. Somewhere down the road the full effect of its meaning came to me. I realized that I was never going to hit my goal of becoming a successful writer if I stayed in my current job. My aim was about 180 degrees off target. I decided to quit my job and start writing again. It was the first of many course corrections that bit of wisdom helped me make over the years.

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