The secret cause of all suffering is, of course, mortality itself, which is the prime precondition of life, so is indeed “grave and constant.” It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed.*
Joseph Campbell

What does matter is that you give everything, because anything less is to cheat the gift.
The gift of your potential.
The gift of the opportunity.
The gift of the craft you’ve been introduced to.
The gift of the responsibility entrusted to you.
The gift of the instruction and time of others.
The gift of life itself.**
Ryan Holiday

We all have our limitations –
Even those who think they have none have plenty –
And the inescapable greatest of these is our mortality,
Yet these restraints shape our lives profoundly and even
wonderfully:
I don’t have many years, so I will use them as best I can,
I am not as talented as so many others, but I will continually develop what I can do,
I am not the best person I can be and yet I remain capable of transcendence,
I can’t do everything, though I can do some things;
I sometimes wonder whether,
If I had more years, would I waste them?
If I was more talented, maybe I’d cruise rather than practise?
If I was a better person, perhaps I’d cease my struggles and doubts?
If I could do more things, would I miss the right thing? –
Limitations are our whetstone for sharpening all the gifts we have,
Together they provide a playground of possibilities.

Look around you, and perhaps make
a list of fifty of the gifts in your life –
Just for starters.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By, quoting Stephen Dedalus;
**Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.