It takes as much stress to be a success as it does to be a failure.

The line argues against the comforting belief that failure is the “easy” or low-pressure path while success is uniquely burdensome. It reframes stress as largely unavoidable: both trajectories demand effort, endurance, and the management of anxiety—only the outcomes differ. Implicitly, the quote encourages choosing the strain that aligns with one’s aims, since avoiding stress by settling for less is an illusion. It also suggests a moral of agency: if stress is the constant, then the rational choice is to invest it in disciplined action, learning, and persistence rather than in the stagnation, regret, and reactive scrambling that often accompany failure.