If an earned life is one of productive overkill—of going all in on what matters—accompanied by sacrifice and trade-offs, that was the moment I got serious about earning my life. I had no other choice.

If there is no market for what you’re offering (and you don’t happen to be the rare visionary who creates a new industry out of thin air), all your skill, confidence, and support will not overcome that hurdle. As Yogi Berra said, “If the fans don’t want to come out to the ballpark, no one can stop them.”

Begin with a basic question. “What do I want to do for the rest of my life?” “What can I do that’s meaningful?” “What would make me happy?” These are not basic. They are deep, multifaceted questions that should be asked throughout your life (but don’t expect an easy or quick answer). Basic questions address one factor only—because for nearly all of

“We tremble before making our choice in life,” wrote Isak Dinesen, “and having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong.”

I have to let go of dreams I entertained in my younger days, not solely because the clock is ticking but also because those dreams don’t make sense to me anymore.

It forces you to regard your well-intentioned efforts today as an investment in the people you are most responsible for raising into productive, happy human beings: yourself and those you love most. It is not a gift; you’re expecting a return.

It’s not that the honors and attention and respect, each well earned in its time, were never real. But they have faded.

Being a creative director at an advertising agency may not seem at first like the perfect training for becoming a screenwriter, but it makes perfect sense when you appreciate the two roles’ adjacency: They both require a gift for storytelling.

Our default response in life is not to experience meaning or happiness. Our default response is to experience inertia.