Fail. Fail again. Fail better. - Samuel Beckett

That has long been one of my favorite quotes and I use it today to remind myself that as many great goals as I have there are far more flaws to contend with in my efforts to achieve those.  And that's ok.  Acceptance, self love, and not taking myself so damned seriously have been the themes in my life for the past few years.  So forget why I failed and let's move on to the the fail again part.

My failing goal for the year?  A simple reboot of the goal I failed at last year: to read a book a month.  That's my self-set goal for the 2013 Outdo Yourself Challenge.  There are a whole lot of fiction books on my reading list but there's a whole lot of non-fiction on there as well.  Specifically, there's a whole lot of non-fiction on the topic of my main hobby: Tang Soo Do.

One of the masters has taken it upon himself to improve the knowledge base of our school by making sure all the black belts have at least a basic understanding of the history of our craft, where it came from, how the knowledge was passed down (or, more accurately, snuck down) and the science behind the physical movements we do.  Being both a big fan of history and a person with a big reading goal for the year this assignment is right up my alley.

And so it is that my first read for the year will be Grandmaster Hwang Kee's The History of Moo Duk Kwan.  It's the first in a long list of books I need to read to enhance my understanding of the martial art I practice.  I'm reading it first this year because it's entirely too basic of a text for me to have not read already and every time I go to class I have a slight pang of guilt over it.  Well no more!

As always, I will be posting my reviews on here and including all the helpful links you might need to learn more about the book and get your own copy if you so choose.  The first helpful link is to The Book Vixen's site so you can sign up for your own reading challenge.  The "Outdo Yourself" category is just one of many so browse around and figure out which one works best for you.  Or don't set any goals at all and just simply read... just like I'm going to right now.