Try your hardest at all times. If that isn’t good enough to merit a brief mention in your local newspaper or a ringing of the bells atop the steeple on the cathedral down on Alder and Sixth—well, that’s okay too!! At least you’ll be left with the giant consolation of knowing you did your absolute best and had no more left to offer and, believe me, that’s worth a lot too. One should never fill a car up with gasoline before taking it to be scrapped at the local junkyard, and you likewise should never hold back in effort while vainly hoping for a second or third or even fourth chance to succeed at whatever endeavor you may be pursuing at the time. Oftentimes one opportunity is all you get, and—truth be told—one is all you should ever rightfully expect. To assume more than that is simply being avaricious.
Fred's Soapbox 