Tie Your Well-Being To This | You Are The Project

<p>Today, we know F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. Tragically, in his own time, many regarded Fitzgerald as a failure. Sure, he was one of the highest paid writers of his time, but his novels sold poorly, and the critical reviews were precisely that–critical.</p><p>This weighed heavily on Fitzgerald, who had a sensitive and vulnerable soul, as many artists do. As Sarah Churchwell, an expert on 20th- and 21st-century American literature and author of <a href="https://geni.us/WfpPM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby</em></a>, explained <a href="https://dailystoic.com/professor-sarah-churchwell-on-genius-big-dreams-and-f-scott-fitzgerald/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on the Daily Stoic podcast</a>:</p><p>“He pinned so much personal hope and ambition and desire and sense of his self-worth as an artist on <em>Gatsby.</em> And its comparative failure devastated him. And, in my view, it really precipitated his spiral…With <em>Gatsby,</em> he made this choice that he was going to write a masterpiece, and then it was met with bafflement. And he lost a lot of his self-confidence and a lot of his momentum at that point.”</p><p>---</p><p>And in today's Daily Stoic excerpt reading, Ryan discusses why it is so important to the maintenance of a healthy life for you to see yourself as the business. Do away with separating yourself from your work. Do work that improves you.</p><p>📚 Check out <a href="https://www.thepaintedporch.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Painted Porch</a> to pick up a copy of Steven Pressfield's <a href="https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/war-of-art-break-through-the-blocks-and-win-your-inner-creative-battles?_pos=2&amp;_sid=e790528d3&amp;_ss=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>The War of Art</em></a> and <a href="https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/writing8?_pos=10&amp;_sid=e790528d3&amp;_ss=r" rel="noopener noreferrer"