Addiction 2: (Refined)

"Becoming a pro, in the end, is nothing grander than growing up."
   - Steven Pressfield

"The difference between an amateur and a professional
is in their habits.

"An amateur has amateur habits.
A professional has professional habits.

"We can never free ourselves from habits.
The human being is a creature of habit.
But we can replace bad habits with good ones.

"We can trade in the habits of the amateur and the addict
for the practice of the professional
and the committed artist or entrepreneur.

***
The addict

"Many artists are addicts, and vice versa.
Many are artists in one breath and addicts in another.
What's the difference?

"The addict is the amateur;
the artist is the professional.

"Both addict and artist are dealing with the same material,
which is the pain of being human and the struggle
against self-sabotage.

"But the addict/amateur and the artist/professional
deal with these elements in fundamentally different ways.

"Distractions.
Displacement activities.
When we're living as amateurs,
we're running away from our calling --
meaning our work, our destiny,
the obligation to become our truest and highest selves."

"Addiction becomes a surrogate for our calling.
We enact the addiction instead of embracing the calling.
Why?

"Because to follow a calling requires work.
It's hard.
It hurts.
It demands entering the pain-zone
of effort, risk, and exposure.

"So we take the amateur route instead.
Instead of composing our symphony,
we create a 'shadow symphony,'
of which we ourselves are the orchestra,
the conductor, the composer, and the audience.
Our life becomes a shadow drama,
a shadow start-up company,
a shadow philanthropic venture."
   -Steven Pressfield.