Life is pain, highness

These are two of my favorite quotations of all time, that I've grown to appreciate more and more over time:

“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

Classic! At one time, I thought this was just a funny line. (Still is.) Now, I understand it also as descriptive.

Sacrifice is required for every moment of being. At the bare minimum, at any given moment, I am sacrificing my time, energy, and focus. Just by existing. By reading. By scrolling. By working.

Every moment, I am sacrificing at the very least my time, energy, and focus.

When I ignored the fact that sacrifice is always in play, I only cheated myself. Once I recognized that, and then got in the driver’s seat, and started to actively choose my sacrifice, it unlocked my potential by orders of magnitude.

Let me rephrase: “Life is sacrifice, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.”

- Chuck Close

Motivation follows action. Not the other way around. That one truth alone can change a life.

‍