“Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great – well, that’s torturous” (Great Work quote)
“When I saw All My Sons, I was changed – permanently changed – by that experience. It was like a miracle to me. But that deep kind of love comes at a price: for me, acting is torturous, and it’s torturous because you know it’s a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, ‘That’s beautiful and I want that.’ Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great – well, that’s torturous.”
~ Philip Seymour Hoffman
With the Golden Globes having wrapped up on Sunday, this insight from Seymour Hoffman (who was nominated this year for best supporting actor and who won the award in 2005 for leading actor) seems apropos.
I found it in this interview in the Guardian, and it brings to light a significant challenge for any of us committed to Great Work:
Knowing the price we could pay for Great Work … are you up for it?
In fact, part of the journey of finding your Great Work is that in the moment of finding it, you find something powerful enough to pull you through the moment of doubt, uncertainty, fear and confusion that are certain to be companions for some of the time.
And seeing as we’re on a roll, here’s another terrific quote from Seymour Hoffman from the same interview:
“Creating anything is hard. It’s a cliché thing to say, but every time you start a job, you just don’t know anything. I mean, I can break something down, but ultimately I don’t know anything when I start work on a new movie. You start stabbing out, and you make a mistake, and it’s not right, and then you try again and again. The key is you have to commit. And that’s hard because you have to find what it is you are committing to.”
(So what’s the thing that you are committed to?)
- “just better than I was yesterday…” (Great Work quote)
- “timidity will do a thousand times more damage…” (Great Work quote)
- “When you have decided what you believe…” (Great Work quote)
- “You can’t get to Wonderful without…” (Great Work quote)
- “Specialization is for insects” (Great Work quote)
I so needed this quote! I have been procrastinating this week about getting started and right at the heart of it was this fear of new-ness. Part of this is committing to being ok about the fact you are in that learning curve and that you are learning as you go which is building your competency.
A brilliant quote. Yes, I’ve found this week hard as I learn some new things. It’s funny how we get the idea that we’re supposed to be instantly competent.
This is great advice. It’s so easy to start something and then think you’re going to get it to go right away. Wrong. Commitment is hard for everyone, I guess it’s the fear of failure that keeps people from committing to things. How many times have I decided not to do something that I knew was a good idea? (I swear I thought of what expedia before expedia, sometime in 1996!) Too many to count. Thanks for pulling that quote out.