stimuli

"As long as you respect your own good judgment, you’ll have no problem managing judgments you don’t agree with, and won’t have to waste your time feeling annoyed, sick or guilty over bad TV, bad sushi, or bad criticism again."

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And focusing on your bad feelings makes them more important, so you’ll forget other important things in your life that might make you feel better in the long run, like doing your best, making a living, being a good friend, and, in a general way, living up to your values. Then there’s all the research showing that feelings of pain and disappointment cause you to think and act negatively, which causes more pain and disappointment. So spending too much time with your feelings is dangerous for your health. My advice is, fuck ‘em.

Instead, consider your goals, which is what you want to do after accepting what you can’t change. I know, you’ve got lots of feelings about what you can’t change and you’d prefer to ask why rather than accept what you consider as defeat. But here’s the advice that I think can be most helpful: fuck that shit. You’re never defeated if what’s stopping you is reality. Defeat is wasting your time complaining about what you can’t change or trying to control it when you know you can’t. Defeat is being an idiot about not giving up on your wishes. Victory is putting up with the pain and humiliation of reality and trying to make things better anyway.

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"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."