The first time I ate tempura was in a small Japanese restaurant in San Francisco. The fried shrimp and vegetables were so delicious, that I asked the waitress for the recipe. She said, "First you must spend five years sweeping the kitchen and washing dishes. Then, if you show promise, you spend more years learning to select and prepare the ingredients. Then, if you show much promise— in another five or ten years, you will be permitted to learn the recipe for the dish. Usually it takes about twenty years." I said, "Thanks, but I'll just come to the restaurant when I want tempura." Often we forget that any kind of excellence in life requires a long apprentice-ship. We are here, in this world, to develop our unique gift and to allow all the maturation necessary for that gift to be revealed in the fullness and ripeness of time. Don't get impatient: let your gift, talent or skill develop in its own right way.