“Nothing worth having ever comes easy.”

I don’t know who said that, but it’s so incredibly freaking true. For me, humility has always been the starting point for everything worthwhile I accomplish, instead of the result.

I know that’s probably a little backwards, but it’s only after a huge failure or humiliation that I begin to feel like, “Hey. Maybe I can do this. After all, I have nothing to lose.”

And maybe that’s really the key to conquering worlds and becoming an ultimate badass in general.

Maybe it’s not so much humility, but the conviction that whatever it is you’re risking will NEVER be worth more than the thing you’re trying to achieve. Maybe that’s how you can tell the difference between passing fancies and the kind of passions that move you to become great. If it seems easily “doable,” then maybe it’s a waste of your time and god-given talent. Did you ever think about that?

A friend of mine sent me a quote today where Earnest Hemingway (one of the “greats”) essentially stated that 95% of what he wrote was shit. But for every 90-something pages of shit he wrote, there was one page of complete and utter brilliance. So maybe that’s a metaphor for the way life is, too. Maybe you can’t ever be really amazing at something until you suck at it for a really, really long time first.

I don’t know about you, but that gives me hope. Heck, maybe I should work on sucking more… (And if you’d ignore the obvious double entendre there, I’d really super appreciate it.)