The Professional

 

  1. shows up every day
  2. stays on the job all day
  3. commits to the long haul
  4. sets the stakes high, sees they’re real
  5. is patient
  6. seeks order
  7. demystifies
  8. acts in the face of fear
  9. accepts no excuses
  10. plays it as it lays
  11. is prepared
  12. doesn’t show off
  13. masters technique
  14. asks for help
  15. doesn’t take failure — or success — personally
  16. doesn’t identify with his or her instrument
  17. endures adversity
  18. self-validates
  19. reinvents herself
  20. is known by other professionals
  21. is courageous in sacrifice — enduring criticism, blame, envy
  22. works while others tweet
  23. is ruthless with himself, and compassionate; no perfectionism
  24. lives in the present
  25. defers gratification
  26. doesn’t wait for inspiration
  27. doesn’t give his power away
  28. helps others
  29. is neither groupie nor icon
  30. doesn’t seek the praise of the praised or proximity to the powerful or famous

— Steven Pressfield, from Turning Pro, page 90

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

Read More »

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

Random

Are You Jackin’ With Me?

The one thing I know about The Dark Knight Rises is that it’s the most boring action movie I’ve seen in years, and yes, I saw The Expendables. But it might not be an action movie. So apart from the surety there, my thoughts remain roundaboutly, which is just, considering the movie itself. And the

Read More »

An Epic For Our Time

Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” is like cram, the bread the dwarves eat for weeks as they explore The Lonely Mountain — and for much longer as men and elves lay them siege. It sustains but does not nourish, providing energy but no taste. But let Tolkien tell it: “I don’t know the recipe, but it

Read More »

Animal Planet Part XVII

Well we watched the end of Planet of the Apes. Oy. The 2001 version ends, as you may know, in a massive battle scene, like some simian Braveheart. Huh? This is how a Tim Burton film (almost) ends? Not with a weirdness but a boom? Then there’s the whole Lincoln Memorial (actual) end. Huh? Huh?

Read More »

Everyone’s From Somewhere

On this the last day of August, is my only post for August. It’s been busy. I don’t much like that word — busy, not August — but it’s good shorthand, and right about nowshorthand is most welcome. In August we got new flooring in the kitchen and bathroom had the entire interior of the

Read More »

Related

Baseball-O-Matic 9000

Farrell took Price out in the bottom of the 9th and the Angels beat the Red Sox in Anaheim. I like Farrell, Price, and the Red Sox. I have no bones to pick there. I also have no set demand that pitchers always throw more than 100 pitches — Price had thrown 109 through eight. My thesis

Read More »

Can We Tawk?

Comedienne Joan Rivers’ catchphrase was, ‘Can we talk?’ with all that that entails — its rhetorical nature, the Jewish thing, an implication that at least one of the parties will be better off for having done so … Like God. T’other day a priest spoke of ontological remembrance, the immediate and ongoing memory of past-present-future

Read More »

Inconvenient Truth

Near the start of The Shawshank Redemption Andy Dufresne is on the witness stand, losing a battle for his life he will ultimately win. The district attorney calls “inconvenient” the inability to find the gun used in the crime. Andy has used the gun to make a hole in the river, though not to make

Read More »

16 Precepts

You have asked me how to pursue learning. I pass this along in response — Move from the easier to the difficult Be cautious of speech Be slower still in frequenting places of talk Embrace purity of conscience Pray without ceasing Love your home and to be there often Show geniality to all  Pay no heed to others’

Read More »