Well, clapper, you seem to have it right. The best advice I know is from Pasternak and if you don't have it, my gift to you:
IT IS NOT SEEMLY
It is not seemly to be famous,
Celebrity does not exalt;
There is no need to hoard your writings
And to preserve them in a vault.
To give your all---this is creation,
And not---to deafen and eclipse.
How shameful when you have no meaning,
And be on everybody’s lips.
Try not to live as a pretender,
But so to manage your affairs
That you are loved by wide expanses
And hear the call of future years.
Leave blanks in your life---not in your papers,
And do not ever hesitate
To pencil out whole chunks, whole chapters
Of your existence, of your fate.
Into obscurity retiring.
Try your development to hide,
As autumn mist on early mornings
Conceals the dreaming countryside.
Another, step by step, will follow
The living imprint of your feet;
But you yourself must not distinguish
Your victory from defeat.
And never for a single moment
Betray your credo or pretend.
But be alive---this only matters---
Alive and burning to the end.
