Everything had fallen away from him during those years: money, power, fame; nothing was certain for him anymore: not life, not health, not happiness; all had been called into question for him: vanity, ambition, relationships. Everything was reduced to bare existence. Burnt through with pain, everything that was not essential was melted down — the human being reduced to what he was in the last analysis: either a member of the masses, therefore no one real, so really no one — the anonymous one, a nameless thing (!), that "he" had now become, just a prisoner number; or else he melted right down to his essential self.
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There's the joke that we have as actors of the five stages of your career. There's who is Wendell Pierce? Get me Wendell Pierce. Get me someone like Wendell Pierce. Get me a younger Wendell Pierce. And then the last and final and fifth stages, who is Wendell Pierce?
Wendell Pierce — Fresh Air
The rule of thirds is that when you're chasing a dream or doing anything hard, you're supposed to feel good a third of the time, OK a third of the time and crappy a third of the time. If you're within this ratio, then the bad days aren't bad. They just mean you're chasing a dream.
TED
So much of our lives is shaped by the idea, the belief, that all you have to do to succeed is believe harder. And if you fall on hard times, well, better try harder. It's all on you after all.
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