The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

To serve this higher purpose, you must cultivate what is unique about you.
Stop listening so much to the words and opinions of others, telling you
who you are and what you should like and dislike. Judge things and
people for yourself. Question what you think and why you feel a certain
way. Know yourself thoroughly—your innate tastes and inclinations,
the fields that naturally attract you. Work every day on improving
those skills that mesh with your unique spirit and purpose. Add to the
needed diversity of culture by creating something that reflects your
uniqueness. Embrace what makes you different. Not following this
course is the real reason you feel depressed at times. Moments of
depression are a call to listen again to your inner authority.
In a world full of endless distractions, you must focus and prioritize.
Certain
activities are a waste of time. Certain people of a low nature will drag
you down, and you must avoid them. Keep your eye on your long- and
short-term goals, and remain concentrated and alert. Allow yourself
the luxury of exploring and wandering creatively, but always with an
underlying purpose.

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You must adhere to the highest standards in your work.
You strive for
excellence, to make something that will resonate with the public and
last. To fall short of this is to disappoint people and to let down your
audience, and that makes you feel ashamed. To maintain such
standards, you must develop self-discipline and the proper work
habits. You must pay great attention to the details in your work and
place a premium value on effort. The first thought or idea that comes
to you is most often incomplete and inadequate. Think more
thoroughly and deeply about your ideas, some of which you must
discard. Do not become attached to your initial ideas, but rather treat
them roughly. Keep in mind that your life is short, that it could end any
day. You must have a sense of urgency to make the most of this limited
time. You don’t need deadlines or people telling you what to do and
when to finish. Any motivation you need comes from within. You are
complete and self-reliant.
When it comes to operating with this inner authority, we can
consider Leonardo da Vinci our model. His motto in life was ostinato
rigore, “relentless rigor.” Whenever Leonardo was given a
commission, he went well beyond the task, poring over every detail to
make the work more lifelike or effective. No one had to tell him to do
this. He was ferociously diligent and hard on himself. Although his
interests ranged far and wide, when he attacked a particular problem,
it was with complete focus. He had a sense of a personal mission—to
serve mankind, to contribute toward its progress. Impelled by this
inner authority, he pushed beyond all of the limits that he had
inherited—being an illegitimate son with little direction or education
early on in his life. Such a voice will likewise help us push beyond the
obstacles that life places in our path.
It might seem at first glance that having such a voice from within
could lead to a rather harsh and unpleasant life, but in fact it is the
opposite. There is nothing more disorienting and depressing than to
see the years pass by without a sense of direction, grasping to reach
goals that keep changing, and squandering our youthful energies.
Much as the outer authority helps keep the group unified, its energy
channeled toward productive and higher ends, the inner authority
brings you a sense of cohesion and force. You are not gnawed by the
anxiety that comes with living below your potential.
Feeling the higher self in ascendance, you can afford to indulge that
lower self, to let it out at moments to release tension and not become a

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prisoner of your Shadow. And most important, you no longer need the
comfort and guidance of a parent or leader. You have become your own
mother and father, your own leader, truly independent and operating
according to your inner authority.
The select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal
from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose
service he freely accepts. . . . We distinguished the excellent man from the
common man by saying that the former is one who makes great demands
on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself, but
contents himself with what he is, and is delighted with himself. Contrary to
what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence . . . who lives in essential
servitude. Life has no savor for him unless he makes it consist in service to
something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of
serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he
grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent,
with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline—the noble life.
—José Ortega y Gasset

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