Once, when I was young, I told my mother that when I grew up I wanted a stable, easy 9-to-5 job. Throughout my childhood my parents were always working: showing clients property on nights, fixing up houses we owned to rent on weekends. I was tired of being dragged along to paint houses on Saturday afternoons, and I told her as much. Why couldn't she just have a normal job like I would one day, without the long hours, instability, and constant crush?
"Oh, Justin," she said, "Life is a struggle, whether you have a normal job or not. The low points make the highs sweeter."
(...)
I was born to be a starter, and that's what I expect I'll do in the future, whether the past is filled with successes or failures. Startups are marathons, but sometimes they have sprints in them -- I'm not scared of sprints. I love the grind, and the rush of winning. We do work smarter, even though that is not the part of the story I told yesterday. I'll continue to give everything I can to get the room excited whether it is for a video game tournament, live reality show, or a simple mobile video sharing app.
It might be more of a compulsion than should be glamorized.
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