A Swing and probably a miss at Theology

So something the other day got me thinking about the word holy and how I want to be holy. So I thought about it and I started to wonder if this was something I could gain or something that only God could give me? So a big verse on this for me is 1 Peter 1:13-16. The end thought of it "Be holy because I (meaning God) am holy." So it's something God commands (ooh scary word) us to do. Therefore (king James version?) it's something everyone should be striving for as christians. But can we make oursevles holy? When Moses comes to the burning bush he is told to take of his sandles because it is holy ground. I don't know about you but I don't think the ground can strive very hard to be holy, which leads me to believe that holiness is something God gives something or someone. Yet, the more I think of it I think it is holy only because God's presence as there and I'm not sure if it would remain holy after His presence left. So what is this holiness well in the verses mentioned above it talks about not conforming to the world but to be holy. So that leads me to think that holiness is something we can attain. Yet, when I think about the ground being holy I think that maybe we are holy because when we do those things we are closer to God. Well I'm not really sure on this, but I think it's a mix of the two. It is something that we can work at but, God still is the one putting it on us.