December 14, 2024
It doesn't mean what you think it means.
Author Ryan Holiday tells a story when he first made the New York Times Best-Sellers list, a dream for all writers, right? To Ryan, that's wrong. The process to make the list is actually quite ridiculous and should not be why a writer decides to write. Holiday recalls when he first made the list, "I made it," he thought. One week later his slot on the best-sellers list was taken, by Donald Trump Jr., and it was revealed that Trump Jr. had purchased the copies of his book, himself. Why?
To make the best-sellers list. Holiday came to realize that the work is the win, not some arbitrary system that can be rigged (it turns out this runs in the Trump DNA).
There is a story of actor Brad Pitt and he was doing one of his first set of press releases. He just made it as an actor, you know the big break. A few days later, Pitt goes to a friends house and sees that same press release, lining the inside of a bird cage. This tells us nothing lasts. All trophies end up in the trash. A newly set record will be broken. It’s all fleeting, ephemeral.
"Sic transit gloria mundi," a latin expression that fits here. So if you based your worth on a list of best-sellers or seeing your article covered in bird poop, ultimately that might lead you in the wrong direction and, to procrastinate.
The work and finishing it, has to be the win. Its all we control. If you can lay/sit and ponder the work done and be proud of it, you've already won!