Success, in the end, has to be about the work.
This is simple to understand, but not easy to do.
See, there are only two things at play here:
A: The work.
B: The success that you want to achieve.
B is outside of your control – so that only leaves A.
All there is is the writing, the painting, the pictures, the acting, the selling, the coding, the whatever.
So that’s what I will be doing for as long as I can do it.
I’ll do four posts every weekday. Practicing in public. And build a portfolio, one day at a time. I might get another back-link here and there. And maybe another Twitter follower.
But I am not going to worry about uncontrollable outcomes.
I am going to chase art, just for the art.
Which means, I’ll be doing nothing but putting in the work.
Understand: For any art, the work is the most important part.
Actors are storytellers. And storytelling is the essential human art. It’s how we understand who we are. I don’t mean to make it sound high-flown. It’s not. It’s discipline and repetition and failure and perseverance and dumb luck and blind faith and devotion. It’s showing up when you don’t feel like
it, when you’re exhausted and you think you can’t go on. Transcendent moments come when you’ve laid the groundwork and you’re open to the moment. They happen when you do the work. In the end, it’s about the work.
-Bryan Cranston, A Life In Parts