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Good place to say what a profound genius P G Wodehouse was. Here's one of my favourite exchanges from a Jeeves book: "If you will recollect, we are now in Autumn – season of mists and mellow fruitfulness." "Season of what?" "Mists, sir, and mellow fruitfulness."
I know this is somewhat of a false dichotomy, but at some point I think PG's essays started to shift from being directed at startup founders to giving advice to his children that they can read when they grow older.
Ok I just looked up the phrase false dichotomy, apparently doesn't mean what I thought it meant, probably would have been better said as "the two are not mutually exclusive", still point holds.
- Working hard starts at school, but there is a lot of "distortion"
- It's complicated to since it depends on multitude of person's factors and likes
- You have to be honest with yourself
- You have to find something you want or/and talented to do
- More competitive areas or ambitious goals will required more effort
- What was said before may not work given the circumstances of each individual
If a life of hard work is needed to get you into heaven that's fine. Or if anything less would mean you and your dependants going hungry. But once your basic needs are met then it's irrational not to start spending time on all of the other things that life has to offer.
I feel like drive and energy and work-ethic are great, and you're useless without them. All the same if you have nothing else then you just become enslaved by your need to output more or increase your wealth or whatever, without connecting that to any healthy goal like health or happiness or wellbeing. It's like a cognitive defect, a disability except you're unable to not-do.
In my experience, there is no such thing as hard work. There’s a universal river of truth that I can tap into in flow state, and if something is blocking me from getting there, I might as well watch a show and see if the river is open later.
One thing I find important relates to other people. Some say that success comes from hard work, or that the right focus is essential to success. But that's a false dichotomy.
In truth, there are many people out there who work incredibly hard, and some of them are even good, and some of those have the right focus.
Hard work is the precondition. Even if your focus is right and you're clever, you are always competing with people who also have that but put in many hours on top.
It's a tower, and if you want to rise, you need to tackle all the layers.
I'd like to add that it is more than fine to not do great work. If you like to spend a lot of time with your kids and tend to your vegetable patch, by all means only try hard enough to keep the job that pays for that lifestyle.
So, no dig on the author, but there is more than maximizing for great work. Try for a while to instead maximize for life happiness and experience how that feels for you.
Good place to say what a profound genius P G Wodehouse was. Here's one of my favourite exchanges from a Jeeves book: "If you will recollect, we are now in Autumn – season of mists and mellow fruitfulness." "Season of what?" "Mists, sir, and mellow fruitfulness."
What is that about?