Fortune Favors the Brave

The News:

In case you don’t already know, on January 22, I released the final episode of the What Sid Thinks Podcast. I’ll just say it was time (if you’d like more details, please listen to the episode).

My album – Sid Hillman “Oxygen” – is finished, the cover is designed, and the release date is set for May 2, 2025 on Rare Bird – an indie label in Los Angeles. Super excited and will keep you posted (FYI, I’ll have a three-song EP coming out not too long after….).

If you want to, you know, actually finish a novel, a screenplay, an album, get your s@#t together once and for all re: your health and/or happiness, finish an ultramarathon or some other such challenge, click here and schedule a quick chat with me.

The Post:

Let’s face it: most meaningful blog posts begin with a little Latin, am I right?!? Side note: to pad my college applications, I joined the Latin club in high school. The Latin club.

 So here goes…

“Audentes fortuna iuvat,” which means: Fortune favors the brave. However, since this is my blog, I’m gonna claim that the phrase “fortune favors the brave” originated in one of my favorite songs, Give up the Ghost by Rosi Golan – I recommend you give it a listen. But I digress.

Fortune favors the brave.

There is an ever-increasing need for those of us who follow ideas, not people, for those of us who recognize the very culty behavior in the world today, to be ultra-aware of the difference between real strength and fake tough. Calm, independent-thinking control versus bluster. Lifting up, not punching down. Acting on principle, not following the masses. Doing the hard work of grounding oneself in one’s values and standards, not needing to be surrounded by “yes” people.

As I have said for years, the hardest work is living life on your terms with integrity, power and honesty. Doing what is right, often in spite of how you feel. This hard work is a daily struggle; it takes great courage and yields a good, meaningful, fulfilling life.

But there is a hitch that makes the whole “fortune favors the brave” concept a little messy. The hitch is that material fortune often favors the weak – the weak of character, the principle-less, the greedy. This can make the struggle for a happy life very frustrating, as we can’t help but notice that many of these non-great people achieve great financial success. Financially, though. For, look a little closer, and you will see those same people are often unhappy, in need of constant affirmation, always in search of external validation, addicted to social media comments, feedback, and reviews, insecure at their core, and desperately searching to fill a void that cannot be filled.

And so, I propose the following Latin re-phrase:

Felicitas fortes adiuvat: happiness favors the brave.

This, I believe to be true.

Be brave. Define your life, define your ideals. Create things, put them out into the world, and then let them go. Move and keep moving.

Happiness will follow.