Creative Endeavors are by their nature uncertain. - Robert Greene

The pain is kind of challenge your mind presents - will you learn how to focus and move past boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction?

Commit harmless mistakes that will not hurt you in the long run but will give you the chance to ask for his help. Masters adore such requests. A master who cannot bestow on you the gifts of his experience may direct rancor and ill will at you instead.

To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger.