Do the work

Steven Pressfi

eld

Do Th

e Work!

90

In the belly of the beast,

you and I chose HEAVEN.

We’ve learned and we’re stronger.

Now we face the fi

nal test.

Exposure In mountaineering , there’s a technical term called “exposure.” A climber is exposed when there is nothing but thin air beneath her. She can be a hundred feet from the summit of Everest and not be exposed, if there’s a ledge or a shelf below. Conversely, she can be in shorts and a tank top down at the beach, practice-climbing on a boulder ten feet tall, and be completely exposed—if there’s a fall beneath her.

When we ship, we’re exposed.

Th

at’s why we’re so afraid of it. When we ship, we’ll be judged.

Th

e real world will pronounce upon our work and upon us.

When we ship, we can fail. When we ship, we can be humiliated.Here’s another true story:Th

e fi

rst professional writing job I ever had, aft

er seventeen

years of trying, was on a movie called

King Kong Lives

. I and

Heaven and Books About Heaven Have you seen this great New Yorker cartoon:

A perplexed person stands

before two doors. One door

says HEAVEN. Th

e other says

BOOKS ABOUT HEAVEN.

What makes us laugh, I suspect, is that all of us feel the pull to pick BOOKS ABOUT HEAVEN.

Are we that timid? Are our

huevos

that

pocito

?

When we’re off

ered a chance at heaven, what diabolically craven

force makes us want to back off

—just for now, we promise our-

selves—and choose instead heaven’s pale refl

ection?

Fear of success is the

essence of Resistance.

It’s silent, covert, invisible ... but it permeates every aspect of our lives and poisons them in ways we’re either blind to or in denial about.