Never beg.

Never freaking beg. For attention. For love. For money. For anything.

Make it your mantra, your motto, your lifeline.

The words you speak under your breath when you hear yourself about to go down a path you know you shouldn’t. A path where you value yourself as less than you are. A path you should never be on, not if you really want to achieve in your work, your love, your life.

You wouldn’t beg for the barbell to be lighter, would you?

So why beg for life to be easier? (Or sweeter. Or nicer.)

Life is.

Do you not wish to be strong? How do you think you are going to get strong? Strong doesn’t arrive overnight on your doorstep: some box delivered because you asked for it.

You handle one hard thing after another. That’s how you get strong.

So, when you beg for something—even for mercy or love—you are saying you don’t have the power to earn it. That someone must give it to you. That you need charity, because you can’t earn results.

That’s no way to live the only life that you have.

Instead, walk away. Go get strong, and earn what you so desire. And be glad that you have opportunities to become strong. This is where you are made. Just as fitness is earned in the gym, so too is your emotional fitness earned in life.

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“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”