Artie Shaw

Mr. Shaw died last week at age 94. He is most famous for the big band hit, Begin the Beguine, that made him famous. The Wall Street Journal has a delightful article of remembrance of him which ends with the following statement of Mr. Shaw's:

As deservedly high as was his own opinion of what he'd achieved musically, Mr. Shaw made no claims for having been a paragon of wisdom. "I must have been a bewildered guy," he said earlier in 2004, looking back on a variety of missteps in his life: eight marriages that ended in divorce (or, in the first case, annulment), capricious career moves, songs he thought would be hits that weren't. "I make big mistakes. Like I've said, I was wrong 80 percent of the time.

"But there was that 20 percent..."

It's that sense of perspective and optimism that is, I believe, so important, to have in spite of your mistakes and personal failings, that will keep you pointed in the right direction and mentally healthy.

And, as I've always been a fan, I have wished that Shaw's version of Begin the Beguine would be played at my funeral, some day in the distant future.