Keep death and exile before you every day, along with everything that seems terrible – by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire.*
Epictetus

Imagine what it’s like to be the silver medalist. If you’d just been one second faster, you could have won the gold! Damn! So close! … Now imagine what it’s like to be the bronze medalist. If you’d just been one second slower, you wouldn’t have won anything! Awesome!**
Derek Sivers

A friend shared how his old job had recently been
split into three, and he had been hired for
one of these roles; I asked him if he got the part he
enjoyed the most – he did.

This got me to wanting to ask you
a question –
I’ll ask it in a few parts, and perhaps take a moment to
reflect and write out each response:

If your present job was reimagined as three new roles,
What would they be?

Which of these is
the role you’d want to be rehired into?

How would you walk with this, then
run, then fly?

Here’s your bronze medal^ –
You already have this job, so why not
begin to make happen what you have just imagined;
My guess is that it will change the other two parts of your work.

*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No;
^Gabe Anderson considers this from another angle in his blog: Sideman Blues.